


dream team

by clintasha



Category: Actor RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Alternate Universe - Reality Show, F/M, The Amazing Race AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-05-02 05:26:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 80,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19192696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clintasha/pseuds/clintasha
Summary: when lizzie asks scarlett to audition with her, she can’t say no. jeremy and chris are looking for an adventure, flying by the seat of their pants and in it to win it. they're expecting new experiences, a shot at a million dollars, and one hell of a month.or the amazing race au where scarlett and lizzie are college best friends who just want to have fun, jeremy and chris are the driven firefighters who aren’t used to losing, and jeremy falls in love somewhere between france and tunisia.





	1. something in the air the night that i left town

**Author's Note:**

  * For [taylorswift](https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylorswift/gifts).



> emily texted me one day saying "i need you to write an amazing race au" and this fic was born. two months later and here i am finally trying to write it. i blame her for my newfound rennerson obsession; i tried to hold off as long as i could but here we are.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there was something in the air the night that i left town  
> the stars were bright and the world was spinning round  
> it was something in the distance that kept leading me on  
> to a brand new world, to a great beyond  
> / wherever i go by the national parks

Life is all about experience.

Or at least that’s what Lizzie keeps repeating to Scarlett while she is trying to convince her that applying for The Amazing Race is a good idea.

“Come on, Scar,” she says pleadingly. They are sitting in their apartment just off the Columbia campus one Friday night, drinking wine and watching The Amazing Race, because that’s what you do when you are a senior a couple of months away from graduation. Scarlett had commented vaguely on how cool it would be to travel on someone else’s dime, which prompted Lizzie to immediately grab her laptop and pull up the CBS website to see how you even apply for something like that.

“It’s perfect,” Lizzie says, flipping her laptop around so Scarlett can see the page she has pulled up. “You have to be over twenty-one, available to film for a few weeks in the summer, and there’s a casting call in New York next month. We have to do it.”

“I don’t know, LO. The chances of us making it are so small. Why waste our time?” Scarlett shrugs, propping her legs up on the old steamer trunk that doubles as a coffee table. Lizzie had seen it at a yard sale one summer when they were visiting Scarlett’s parents in upstate New York, and she had managed to talk it off the guy for half of what he was asking for. That is the thing about Lizzie: she can talk anyone into anything.

That is how Scarlett finds herself at the open casting call on a cold day in February. It is at a sketchy warehouse, and Scarlett pulls her coat tighter around her as the wind whips by the line of people standing outside. “This is ridiculous,” she hisses to Lizzie. “We’re going to get murdered or something.”

“Buck up, buttercup,” Lizzie says cheerily. “Don’t you want more life experience?”

Lizzie and Scarlett have been best friends since the first day of their freshman year of college. They were roommates, and Scarlett had looked Lizzie up as soon as she got the letter with her name in it the month before school started. She messaged her to say hey, and by the time they got to Columbia in the fall, they were already close. They have lived together ever since, spending every summer together and going on vacations for spring break, moving into an off-campus apartment after their sophomore year, where they plan to stay until graduation.

After that, their lives are just a big blank space. They both plan to go to grad school for their MBAs eventually, have talked about starting a business together but have no clear path as to what that might be. And they certainly don’t want to go right back into another two years of school: they have been in school continuously since they were five or six years old, and a break sounds real good right about now. As they get closer and closer to graduation, Scarlett knows that they are both going to spiral, and she is not looking forward to it.

It is the beginning of April when Lizzie really loses it for the first time. Scarlett gets home from a night class to find her drunk on the bathroom floor, crying into her wine glass about how everyone else has a plan and she is on an island of her own, just bobbing about with zero clue of what she wants to do or where she wants to go. Scarlett sits down next to her, grabbing the tissue box off the bathroom counter and handing it to her, rubbing her back as comfortingly as she can, trying not to show her own pure panic at the mere thought of graduation.

“It’s gonna be fine, LO,” she says, pulling a tissue out of the box. “We’ve always managed to work things out. We’ll get this figured out too.”

“But how do you know?” Lizzie wails. That is a really good question that Scarlett does not have the answer to at the moment.

“I just know.” She tries to seem nonchalant. “We always have.”

Scarlett’s breakdown comes a week later, after everyone in her Business Organizations class is talking about the job offers or grad school acceptances or traveling they have to look forward to after graduation. Lizzie is right there by her side, assuring her that everything will be okay, that they will do great things, and that there is no rush. “We can do anything,” Lizzie says, now the one to pull Scarlett back from the edge of the cliff. “We can bartend or waitress or strip or deliver pizza or intern. Anything really.”

“Strip?” Scarlett asks, tears streaking down her face. “You want to strip?”

“It’s just a suggestion, Scar. Calm down.”

But then they get the call. It is the last week of April, just a couple of weeks before graduation. Scarlett is sitting on the floor in front of the couch, her papers and books and laptop spread out over the steamer trunk. She is trying to finish her senior thesis, has about a week to turn it in and an entire edit to go, and she is just considering taking a break when Lizzie comes flying through the door.

Lizzie does everything quickly; she runs to class and bursts through doors and is constantly moving, making plans to meet up at happy hour or go to a fancy bar in Manhattan and pretend they are heiresses or get dinner from a street cart or hang out in a hotel bar to try to pick up rich businessmen. Most of her schemes are a little crazy, but she is the one who keeps Scarlett’s life interesting. Scarlett’s role is to keep her in check, tell her that maybe they shouldn’t be out until two in the morning on a Tuesday or stop her from going home with that rich businessman from the hotel bar. Together they are a dream team.

That is about to be put to the test.

“We did it!” Lizzie shrieks, practically skidding into the kitchen table, knocking over a stack of clean cups that Scarlett hasn’t gotten around to putting away yet. She barely catches them before they all hit the floor.

“What are you talking about?” Scarlett was up all night at the library, finishing up her first draft and trying to figure out how she could mainline coffee directly into her bloodstream. She will be lucky if she has another hour of work in her before she crashes, and she is trying to stop herself from checking her phone constantly to see if her ex-boyfriend has texted her.

They had broken up a couple of months ago, but they have been on and off since then. He said he didn’t want to be tied down after college, said he would probably be moving to Los Angeles to be a screenwriter, and she is having a hard time letting go. He hasn’t been texting her at all this week, and she can’t stop herself from wondering what the hell he is doing.

“The Amazing Race!” Lizzie says, waving her phone in Scarlett’s face. “We made it!”

“No, we didn’t.” Scarlett rubs her forehead, trying to stave off the headache building behind her eyes. “Stop fucking with me.”

“I’m not!” Lizzie pouts at her. “Look!”

Scarlett grabs her phone from her, trying to get her eyes to focus on the tiny font of the email pulled up on Lizzie’s screen that begins “per our conversation.” What follows is a recap of a phone call that Lizzie has apparently just had with a CBS producer, discussing terms and requirements and prerequisites. At the bottom of the email in bold is the date May 17.

“Holy shit.” She looks up at Lizzie. “You aren’t joking.”

“Of course I’m not!” Lizzie grabs her phone back. “The seventeenth. It’s starting in Central Park. We fucking did it.”

The next couple of weeks are a whirlwind. They have to turn in their theses and take finals and pack up their apartment and fit a summer’s worth of planning into about five days. They move all of their stuff into Scarlett’s parents’ house after annoying Scarlett’s mom for forty-eight hours straight until she agrees to let them leave everything they own there until the end of June. And there are all the things that they have to do to get ready: go shopping for backpacks, figure out how to properly pack (“What the fuck do you need three tubes of toothpaste for?” “Um… brushing my teeth. Why do you need six pairs of shoes?” “Because of all the hot guys we’re gonna meet. Duh.” Eventually Scarlett talks Lizzie down to two pairs of shoes, agreeing to only bring one tube of toothpaste.), get shots and vaccination records, find their passports which haven’t been used since they went to Cabo during spring break their sophomore year, and say goodbye to their families.

Scarlett keeps waiting for Colin to text her. He doesn’t. She tells him that she is leaving for thirty days. Still nothing. Eventually Lizzie tells her that if she doesn’t stop looking at her phone, she is going to break it.

“He can suck it, Scar,” she says. “He sucks. We hate him. Just like we hate people who chew ice. Or walk really slowly in the middle of the sidewalk. Or talk on their cell phones in crowded restaurants.”

“People who drink La Croix.”

“People who spit when they talk.”

“Jesus, LO, you got me right in the eye!”

“You’re so full of it.”

They meet up with some of the producers at CBS, sign a bunch of waivers and releases and contracts that they probably should have had somebody else look at since in their short twenty-three years of life they haven’t had much experience with contract attorneys. But they do the promo shoots and write up their bios for the website and before long, it is all settled: on May seventeenth they will show up at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park with their backpacks and their running shoes, ready to go places they have never been before.

On their last night in New York, they go out to The Heights for frozen margaritas and burgers. Scarlett has turned her phone off, left it at her mom’s house and is refusing to look at it before they leave. Colin can suck it, and thirty days away will be exactly what she needs to leave all of the memories of him behind. They aren’t allowed to bring their phones anyway.

“You were right,” she concedes to Lizzie as a bartender brings their drinks to the table, giant and cold and garnished with salt and fruit. “I should listen to you more often.”

“Hey.” Lizzie sits back, a grin spreading across her face, just visible across the table in the dim light of the bar. “That’s what I’ve been telling you for four years.”

“To adventure,” Scarlett says, raising her glass.

Lizzie clinks her own against it. “And to us.”

* * *

If he is being honest with himself, Jeremy will have to admit that he is used to winning.

Growing up, he played every sport he could fit into his schedule: soccer, baseball, basketball, football, track, even tried his hand at hockey. When all of his friends got their driver’s licenses, they raced their motorcycles up and down the mostly empty highways on the outskirts of their tiny hometown north of Seattle. He was at the top of his EMT class, finished first in every drill or test or exercise at the firefighting academy, tying only with his best friend Chris, the only person he would be fine coming in second to.

When an open casting call for The Amazing Race came to Seattle, Chris and Jeremy go on a whim. It starts as a drunken dare from Jeremy’s friend Kris, but once the idea is planted in his brain, he can’t let go of it. He is thirty years old and he has never been outside of the Pacific Northwest, much less the country. What do they have to lose?

Nothing. That’s what.

From the beginning, there is never any doubt in their minds that they will go home a million dollars richer. Chris has big plans; he wants to open an animal shelter and own a food truck and buy a sailboat. Jeremy just wants a cabin in the woods where he can hunt and fish and be surrounded by silence and nature. He enjoys the simpler pleasures in life.

They don’t do much to prepare. Jeremy thinks about trying to quit smoking gradually, but can’t follow through on that. “You can’t just go cold turkey the day we start,” Chris says.

“Wanna bet?” They are in the kitchen at the firehouse, waiting for dinner to be served, which will inevitably be one second before a call comes in. “Our lungs are so fucked up from all the smoke inhalation at this point anyways.”

“I’m just saying. When we’re on day three of the race and you’re bitching at me because you haven’t had any nicotine in seventy-two hours, I’m going to say I told you so.”

“Say it, Evans. See what happens to you.”

Jeremy and Chris have been best friends since they were five years old. They grew up together, went to the same elementary school and middle school and high school. There was never any doubt in their minds that they would enter the academy together or end up in the same city, both of them naming Seattle as their top pick. When they graduated and started their jobs, they got an apartment in the university district, eventually moving to Alki after being on the job for a few years.

Seattle is great; it is the perfect blend of ocean and city and mountains, but there are days when Jeremy still finds himself longing for the solitude of his tiny hometown. Chris, on the other hand, loves the city, loves that there is always somewhere to go, people to meet, something going on.

There are polar opposites of each other, which explains why they got along so well. Chris has always loved being the center of attention, gregarious and over the top and loud. Jeremy sat in his shadow for thirteen years, letting him soak up the attention and popularity that was afforded to him as the captain of the football team, content to live alongside him steadily and quietly. Chris, for his part, is always dragging Jeremy into the spotlight, pushing him towards girls at parties or bonfires or bars.

And now, at thirty years old, they are quintessential bachelors, their house littered with back issues of Sports Illustrated and golf clubs and piles of laundry that are clean but will probably never be folded. It is everything Jeremy had pictured when they talked about moving to the city, but he is starting to ache for something else, for stability and companionship and something more.

He just isn’t sure what that something more is.

So they find someone to sublet their apartment and take a leave from their jobs and spend even more hours at the gym than they already do, not sure what to expect. Chris, forever the researcher, the one who thinks out every single decision before he makes it, spends hours on the CBS website, looking over the bios and pictures of the other ten teams.

The night before they are set to fly to New York, just a couple of days before the race begins, they sit in their apartment, downing beers, a couple of steaks on the grill. They figure they need one more solid meal before they leave, not sure what was facing them in the cuisine department. They have both seen the show, know that sometimes there are bugs involved. They have already had to set the ground rules for any weird eating contests, Chris promising to take the reins since Jeremy is prone to throwing up at the slightest provocation.

“Okay.” Jeremy is spread out across the couch, beer bottle dangling from his fingertips, feet propped up on the coffee table. “Who is gonna be eating our dust?”

Chris takes a sip of his beer, leaning over his laptop. He scrolls through the list. “Frat brothers… lawyers… married couple with kids.” He leans closer. “No, wait, they’re divorced. Uh… a few sibling pairs. Roommates. Best friends.”

“Let me see.” Jeremy holds his hand out for the computer, refusing to move even an inch from his spot. Chris hands him the laptop, and he drops it onto his lap, scrolling through the teams, the names flying past him. Anthony and Sebastian. A couple of Chrises, one of them paired up with a Robert and the other with a Mark. Paul and Evangeline, the divorced couple with kids. Tom and Brie, Chadwick and Letitia, Karen and Zoe, the three sibling teams. Zendaya, Jacob. Michael, Tessa. He stops at the last picture, two girls outside sitting on the steps of an old but austere-looking brownstone.

“Pretty, right?” He jerks his head up, Chris looking at him and smirking, knowing exactly where he had stopped. He has a thing for redheads, the girl on the left jumping out at him immediately.

“This is The Amazing Race, not The Bachelor.”

“It’s a good thing it’s not.” Chris raises his eyebrows. “Because you suck at talking to girls.”

“I don’t suck. I just choose not to most of the time. Besides, no one pays attention to me when you’re around anyway. You’re-”

“Don’t say it.”

“Cute as Christmas.”

“I hate you.”

“Good thing we’re about to travel around the world together then, huh?”

“What do you want in a girl anyways?” Chris asks like they haven’t had this conversation a hundred times, Jeremy never able to give an answer that satisfies Chris.

“I don’t know.” He pushes the laptop onto the coffee table, draining his beer and putting the bottle down on the floor, knowing that they will have to make sure their apartment is spotless before they go to bed so they won’t have to deal with tidying up for the subletter in the morning before they leave for the airport. “Sense of humor. Chill. Up for an adventure.”

“Well, maybe you’ll find her in some foreign country,” Chris says. “You know, Norway or something.”

“You think we’ll go to Norway?”

“What the hell do I know?”

They don’t end up falling asleep until late that night, staying up talking about strategy and trying to predict where they will go and what they will do and what the challenges will be. But Jeremy can’t get Chris’s words out of his head, wondering if it is about time that they both find someone and settle down. Maybe he will find someone in Norway, just like Chris thinks. But before he drifts off, he finds himself thinking about that girl from the picture. Scarlett, her name is. He doesn’t know her, but it sure seems fitting.

That night he dreams of red hair and Norway and a million dollars, and he wakes up knowing that his whole life is about to change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> catch me on tumblr @ clintxbarton.


	2. leave new york and see the countryside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> leave new york and see the countryside  
> little city and a bigger life  
> watch it grow into a thousand eyes  
> it's ours, it's ours, it's ours  
> / 1953 by the national parks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have been to new york one time and it ended in my father almost getting us arrested, so i am really setting the stage for me to write an entire fic like i know what i'm talking about and have done more than the bare minimum of research (spoiler alert: i haven't). 
> 
> thank you for reading! i was so unsure about starting something new but all of the love and kudos and reblogs and comments mean the world to me.
> 
> tumblr: clintxbarton  
> instagram: amandaalexands

According to the schedule that one of the producers had given them when they checked into WestHouse, they are supposed to be meeting their camera crew right about now. Instead Jeremy is sitting impatiently on one of the beds while Chris throws up in the bathroom. The water is running, so he has no idea where they are at in the process.

“Come on, man,” he says, checking his watch. They have to leave their phones with one of the producers, who will keep them in the CBS office while they are traveling, and he is trying to get used to not being able to look at it. “We’re gonna be late.”

“Shut up.” The water turns off and then turns back on again, and Jeremy has to resist the urge to flop down on the bed, knowing that if he closes his eyes for longer than a blink he will end up sleeping for at least ten hours. It was a mistake to stay up so late the night before, and he hadn’t gotten even one second of shut-eye on the plane, too nervous and excited to even think about grabbing a nap.

All of the teams are sequestered from each other until later this afternoon when they will meet at the starting line. Their itineraries give them instructions to the minute: Jeremy and Chris are supposed to be down in conference room two at 10:17 to avoid meeting up with another team. It is 10:17 on the dot and Chris still has the door shut tight.

“I will leave you here.”

“You can’t. You’re my partner.”

“Then move it.”

“If this is foreshadowing for how the next thirty days are going to go, then it may end in a murder suicide situation.”

Thankfully, Chris gets it together; Jeremy isn’t sure if he has eaten something that doesn’t agree with him or if he is just nervous, but they are only about sixty seconds late, sprinting out of the elevator and skidding to a stop in the lobby. “Sorry,” Jeremy says to the PA who is standing there with an armful of papers and a notebook and a laptop. “This probably isn’t a great way to start, huh?”

She smiles at him. “Don’t worry about it.” She ushers them into the conference room, introducing herself as Cobie. There are two men already sitting at the table, standing up as they come in. Jeremy and Chris shake their hands, sitting down across from them. Their names are Don, who is the sound guy, and Dave, the cameraman, and the five of them will be spending a whole lot of time together over the next month, assuming they make it to the end. Don and Dave will be with them whenever they are actively in the race, Cobie skirting ahead with the rest of the PAs. At the end of the meeting, they push their phones across the table, Chris letting go of his a little reluctantly.

Cobie glances at her watch, and Jeremy knows that they have to be cutting it close; the next team could show up in the lobby at any second. “You better get back upstairs,” Cobie says. “We need you ready to walk over to Central Park at one o’clock.” She practically shoves Jeremy and Chris out of the room.

“I’m already going through withdrawal,” Chris grumbles. “I need my phone.”

Chris has been dating some new girl, a dispatcher for the police department, and he is head over heels for her, just like he always is at first. That usually fades pretty quickly, and Jeremy just puts up with another toothbrush in the bathroom and less beer in the fridge until one day the girl is gone and Chris is pretending like nothing had happened. “Minka will still be there when you get back.”

Chris reaches out, shoving Jeremy sideways, and he barely manages to catch himself before he bowls someone over. “Shit.” He throws his arm out instinctively, steadying himself against her shoulder before they both end up falling to the parquet floor. “I’m…”

His apology dies in his throat as she looks up at him, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. He pulls his hand back quickly once he realizes it is still on her shoulder, shoving it in his pocket. “Jeremy, right?” Her hair is an even deeper red in person, waving long down her back. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be meeting like this.”

“You… know my name?”

“Of course.” She glances around before leaning closer to him. “Wanted to know whose hands I’m going to take the million dollars out of.”

Before he can respond, before he can tell her that he knows her too, that he has been thinking about her, that she has quite literally been the girl of his dreams, that being so close to her even for just a few seconds makes him feel like he is drowning, she is gone. And Jeremy is left standing there, feeling like he has known her for his entire life.

He turns to Chris, eyes wide. “Dude.” Chris snorts. “Get it together. It’s like you’ve never seen a girl before.”

Jeremy just rubs the back of his neck and concentrates on keeping his mouth shut, not wanting to say what he is thinking: he has never seen a girl like that before.

* * *

“We… did not think this through.” Lizzie is sitting on the floor of the hotel room, trying to adjust the straps of her backpack. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to carry this motherfucker.”

They have packed the same way they always pack, which is by shoving as much shit as they can into too small of a space. They have listened to some of the rules: they made sure to buy the most expensive, most comfortable backpacks they could find; bought Patagonia Nano Puff jackets; packed a ton of thermals and quick dry t-shirts and tank tops and sports bras, sweatpants and shorts and yoga pants for layering; brought hats and compression socks and more underwear than they thought they could possibly need. They have gloves and compression stuff-sacks and toothpaste (“You’re going to regret making me unpack the other tubes, LO.” “If you don’t stop talking about the toothpaste, I will push you off a glacier, I swear to God.”), sunglasses and trail running shoes that they had spent hours breaking in. Lizzie has a whistle that she is sure is going to help them hail a taxi. They have eye masks and earplugs and mini alarm clocks, which production had stressed would be the most important because all of the phones and clocks will be removed from wherever they are staying before they get there.

And then they went a little overboard, as the two of them tend to do. Lizzie packed every single piece of makeup she owned, Scarlett trying unsuccessfully to take some out of her bag when she isn’t looking. “You’re going to need it,” Lizzie argues with her the night before when they lay in their hotel beds, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. “When we are on day fifteen and all you want is a little eyeliner, you’re going to be thanking your lucky stars I put up such a fight.”

“Why would I want eyeliner?”

“To impress the hot firefighters obviously.”

“Will you shut up about the firefighters?”

“Come on. You need someone to get you over Colin.”

Scarlett makes a face at her. “No saying his name for the rest of the trip, remember?”

Lizzie mimes zipping her lips and throwing the key away, turning over onto her side to look at Scarlett. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. My bad. This is our life experience and we don’t even need the thought of him kicking around and pooping it up.”

“Exactly.”

If Lizzie has overpacked makeup, Scarlett has directly broken some rules by sneaking a Columbia sweatshirt into her backpack. They aren’t allowed to wear anything with a logo on camera, but she is bringing it with just to remind her of home. She has stacked more notebooks than Lizzie will approve of on top of the sweatshirt, rounding out her contraband with a copy of Into the Wild because she is basic as hell. At least she can admit it.

“We didn’t think any of this through,” Scarlett says. She is in the bathroom, trying to hide the fact that she is putting makeup on from Lizzie, who will have a field day if she knows what is going through Scarlett’s head. “But this is where we are, babe.”

They had been at their post-graduation dinner when they got an email saying that the CBS website had been updated with their pictures and bios, Lizzie immediately opening the link to show her sisters. And there they are, a picture of the two of them on the front steps of their apartment building, their names and ages and occupations (“College Student”) underneath.

“We look great,” Lizzie squeals, passing her phone around the table to her family and Scarlett’s parents and siblings. “Right?” Everyone agrees, toasting to Lizzie and Scarlett and their brand new adventure. Scarlett’s sister hands Lizzie’s phone back to her once it makes its way around the circle, and she takes it, studying the picture.

Lizzie leans in, hooking her chin on Scarlett’s shoulder. She reaches over and starts scrolling through the rest of the teams, saying the names out loud as they pass. “Oh, he’s cute… he’s cute… he’s cute,” she keeps saying as the pictures come up. “Ooh, look…” She stops scrolling, pulling the phone closer to her face. “Firefighters.”

At the time, Scarlett just rolls her eyes, used to Lizzie latching onto someone. She hadn’t had a boyfriend the entire time they were in college, choosing instead to date two or three or five people at once, cutting them loose when she got bored, which happened often. But later that night after they get home to spend one last night in the apartment before they have to start moving out, a little wine drunk and incredibly emotional, she pulls up the bios again, going back to the picture of the firefighters.

They are both thirty, roommates from Seattle, and her eyes are drawn to one of them immediately. He is the shorter of the two, tattoo twisting up the entirety of his arm, eyes so blue that they stand out from everything else, drawing her gaze right towards them. She glances down at his name. Jeremy. She turns it over in her mind, not realizing until the next morning that for the first time in a long time she hasn’t gone to sleep thinking about Colin.

And then she runs into him (literally) in the lobby outside the conference rooms. It has been drilled into their heads that they are not supposed to meet the other teams until the race has officially started, and Scarlett hasn’t had any desire to. They are going to be competing with these people, and she could really use a million dollars. What is the point in getting attached to any of them?

But then she sees Jeremy from across the lobby, watches him joking around with his teammate, and she intentionally veers across the space towards him. Lizzie is distracted, walking as slowly as possible so that she can check her Twitter feed one last time, and Scarlett sees her chance, taking it. She is just going to brush up against his arm, wants to get close enough to see if he is just as attractive in person, but then his teammate pushes him right into her.

“Oh shit.” He swears, catching himself on her shoulder. If she hadn’t already known that he was a firefighter, she might have guessed it, his voice low and rough and sending a shiver down her spine, every muscle in his forearms hard and defined. It is only a couple of seconds, but she feels his hand lingering, her skin burning up underneath it before he pulls it back. “I’m…”

She shakes her head slightly, his name slipping out of her mouth before she can think about the fact that that might be weird. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be meeting like this.” She knows she should just walk away, but she is pinned down by his gaze and honestly, she just wants to hear him speak again.

“You know my name?”

Fuck. It is weird. She scrambles for a cover. “Of course.” Scarlett looks around for Lizzie, who is thankfully still lingering on the other side of the room, her thumbs moving rapidly as she types something on her phone. She leans closer, fighting the urge to put her hand on his arm, feel the muscles under her fingers. The tattoo is even more intricate in person, black and gray and covering his arm from wrist to shoulder. “Wanted to know whose hands I’m going to take the million dollars out of.”

She knows she has to get away from him before she lets it slip that she had looked him up on Instagram, knows more about him than she should. So she slides away, disappearing into an empty conference room to catch her breath. By the time she comes back out, he is gone.

Scarlett has been around him for all of forty-five seconds, and she is hooked.

So that is why she is leaning close to the bathroom mirror to put mascara on, glancing over her shoulder periodically to make sure that Lizzie is still engrossed in her backpack. Now she has everything spread out all over the floor, and it looks like she has unpacked it completely. “LO, what are you doing?”

“Repacking,” she grumbles, shoving her jacket into the bottom of her backpack, trying to punch it down and simultaneously pile things on top of it to keep it folded as small as possible. “As you can see, it’s going well.”

Scarlett tucks the tube of mascara into the waistband of her yoga pants, hitting the lights on her way out of the bathroom. “Here.” She plops down next to Lizzie. “I’ll help.” It takes both of them, but eventually they get everything into Lizzie’s backpack, and she is able to zip it up.

“Oh, fuck.” She groans when she picks it up, testing the weight. “How the hell are we supposed to run with these things on?”

“Pure adrenaline, I’m guessing.” Scarlett waits until Lizzie turns her back before she shoves the mascara into her backpack, zipping it up quickly.

There is a knock on the door, Lizzie stomping over towards it, complaining the whole way about how heavy her backpack is. Scarlett thinks about telling her to take some shoes out, but they are way past the point of no return on that one. It is their producer, Bradley, at the door, telling them that it is one o’clock and time to go.

All of a sudden, the magnitude of what they are about to do really hits Scarlett. The past couple of weeks have been such a whirlwind of planning and packing and unpacking and repacking and saying goodbyes and coming up with insane ideas about what is in front of them that she hasn’t really had a chance to take a moment, breathe, and realize what they are doing.

She figures Lizzie is feeling the same way because in the elevator on their way down to the lobby, she grabs onto Scarlett’s hand so tightly she thinks a bone might break.

They are rushed into another conference room, sign one more form, and leave their backpacks with Bradley, who will go through them to make sure they aren’t trying to sneak in Apple Watches or Fitbits or credit cards or cash and then bring them to the starting line. “You all know where to go?”

“Yeah.” They have only been to Central Park about five hundred times in the last four years. Bradley pats them both on the shoulder comfortingly, probably sensing their sudden onslaught of anxiety.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” he says.

Lizzie keeps a firm grasp on Scarlett’s hand as they hurry out the front door of the hotel. Shockingly, there are no other teams around, and she can only assume that the producers are releasing them one by one. Their camera crew, made up of two women named Kat and Hayley, will be waiting for them at the entrance to Central Park, so they only have a couple more minutes to themselves.

Suddenly Lizzie comes to a stop, and Scarlett’s anxiety ramps up an extra notch as she fights the urge to look at her watch. “Wait.” Lizzie yanks her back towards her on the sidewalk, putting her hands on Scarlett’s shoulders. “Are you ready?”

If she is being honest with herself… no. She shakes her head.

“Me either.” Scarlett reaches up, grabbing Lizzie’s hands and holding on tight. They stand there for another few seconds. “Okay.” Lizzie nods firmly. “Are you ready now?”

She takes a deep breath. “Yes.”

They turn toward the gate of the park, ready to step through it, ready for the games to begin.

* * *

Jeremy and Chris are, by nature, strategic people.

Firefighters have to be. They have game plans for everything, like they are football players getting ready to go for it on a fourth and long. Everything from where they sit in the truck to where all of the tools are is assigned and practiced and executed to perfection. When you have a resistive type one structure fire in a high rise building, there is no room for error, not if you want to make it out alive. There is a reason Jeremy and Chris have more hot saves than anyone else on the force.

They trust each other with their lives because they have to. And that is why they are going to win.

Even so, when they are standing at the starting line at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, looking at Phil Keoghan and surrounded by ten other teams, camera crews and drones and producers moving around them like a tornado, he is starting to understand why Chris spent so long throwing up this morning.

Cobie had spent a long time with them that morning explaining the rules, the list of which is vast. They are responsible for purchasing plane tickets for their camera crew; if they can’t get enough for all four of them, then they have to find another flight. They will accrue time penalties if they skip a task or don’t follow directions perfectly or can’t complete something. If they lose their passports or money or a clue, their camera crew aren’t allowed to say anything about it. They have twelve hours from the time they check in at the pit stop to sleep and eat and relax before they have to start racing again. Their crew will be reporting everything to Cobie, who will be reporting directly to Phil, so by the time they hit the mat he will know how their entire leg has gone.

“Above all,” she tells them. “Just be respectful and push as hard as you can. It’s going to be one hell of a twenty-one days.”

They are just about to meet their crew at the entrance to the park, coming in on the south side, and Jeremy can see other teams out of the corner of his eye. Once again, they are all staggered to avoid any accidental contact, but it is hard to miss the people holding the giant cameras. “Listen,” Chris mutters. “We need to follow the hot girls out of here. They’re from New York, and they’re gonna know exactly where to go.”

“Fine,” Jeremy says, not about to turn down a chance to be around Scarlett again. “Just don’t be a creep about it.”

“I’ve never been a creep in my life.”

Jeremy raises an eyebrow at him, but they have reached the gate, Dave quickly telling them that he is about to start filming. He walks alongside them, Don trailing behind, as they make their way through the park wordlessly towards the fountain. They aren’t supposed to be talking to each other, these shots going to be used with a voiceover of Phil introducing them, but Jeremy doubts that he would be able to say anything anyways.

They end up falling in line with the other teams, the producers guiding them towards where they need to be as they walk single file into the park and around the fountain to where Phil is waiting. Jeremy can see Scarlett’s red hair in front of him as she leans closer to her partner to whisper something.

Once they are all standing in a line facing Phil, he starts talking, and Jeremy realizes that he needs to stop thinking about Scarlett and start paying attention. Chris knows he is zoning out, jabbing an elbow into his side. A drone moves over their heads, pulling back and getting a shot of all of the teams together, complete with Jeremy elbowing Chris back.

“In just a few minutes, you’ll be leaving on a race that will circle the globe,” Phil addresses them. “Along the way you’ll be required to complete a number of tasks. They will be physically and mentally challenging.” Jeremy’s stomach makes a noise, Chris glancing over at him. Neither of them had eaten that morning, and he is starting to realize what a mistake that was. “There are eight elimination points in this race, and the last team to arrive at the pit stop will be eliminated.” Jeremy looks past Phil, sees all of their backpacks lined up in a row at the top of a giant set of stairs, and he immediately starts calculating their chances of beating all of the other teams up to the top.

Phil holds up a black case with a bright yellow The Amazing Race emblazoned across it. “This is your travel packet,” he says. “It contains all of the information you will need for the first leg of the race, as well as some cash. How you use the money is completely up to you, but you will not get any more of it until you finish this leg of the race.” That part is going to be cake for Jeremy; it physically pains him to spend money, something Chris complains about constantly. Cobie had told them that production will pay for their plane tickets, but they are in charge of buying everything else, whether it is food or cab fare or paying someone to guide them around.

“Your travel packets are attached to the luggage you brought with you.” Phil points over his shoulder, up towards the top of the stairs. Jeremy squints, trying to see which bags are theirs. He thinks he spots them dead center. “Alright, everyone.” Phil pauses dramatically, producers start to scatter, camera crews sprint towards the stairs to get ahead of the mad rush that is about to occur, and Jeremy tries to focus on what is going on, blocking out everyone around him. “The world is waiting for you. Best of luck, travel safe…” Another pause. Jeremy holds his breath. “And go!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> catch me on tumblr @ clintxbarton.  
> fic playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7vfpk7ZKqu0ZSnYKahc96T?si=IrJdyZqZSd6xB62Y0IQnQQ


	3. all passing me by like a dream in the night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in the corner of my mind i've been thinking of some times  
> i took streets, trails, and old back roads  
> deserts, oceans, riverbends, said goodbye to some dear friends  
> sometimes that's how it goes  
> it's all passing me by like a dream in the night  
> / places by the national parks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back! i took a brief hiatus to get married but i should be posting weekly now that i'm done with the craziest part of my summer.
> 
> i got to meet emily and gracie for the first time this weekend, and it turned into our own little amazing race where i led us to three different hotels, two of which were the wrong ones, and we did a lot of yelling about directions and being late. it was chaotic and also the best, so i tried to channel that energy for the fab four.
> 
> i hope you're enjoying this! come hang out with me on instagram at @amandaalexands and tumblr at clintxbarton.

Chris takes off, a couple of steps in front of Jeremy, and he concentrates on not falling as they take the steps two or three at a time. They are getting bumped from all sides as people race up the steps, but Chris manages to get to their bags first, grabbing the travel binder off the top and unzipping it, throwing it at Jeremy as he pulls the clue out.

When they were asked to describe themselves as a team, the words they used were competitive and creative and cool under pressure. But right now with everyone crowded into a small area, paper flying and people calling out to their partners and a little bit of pushing and shoving, the last thing Jeremy feels is cool under pressure.

Chris starts reading, his voice low like everyone around them doesn’t have the exact same piece of paper. Teams are all around them, some of them reading loud enough that Jeremy can hear them, some of them whispering like Chris is. To their left is the team that Jeremy recognizes as the frat brothers: Anthony and Sebastian, both of whom are incredibly in shape and beat Jeremy up the stairs handily. On their right is Paul and Evangeline, the divorced parents, and it sounds like they are already bickering under their breath. As Jeremy glances around, he sees Scarlett and her teammate - Lizzie is her name - a couple of people away.

He turns his attention back to Chris. “Get yourself to Johannesburg, South Africa,” Chris says, not sounding even a little winded. No fucking way, Jeremy thinks. Obviously he knows that they are going to be traveling around the world, but suddenly it is very real. “Oh my God. Okay. You may only travel on one of these three flights: Alitalia number 605, Swissair 101, or South African Air number 202. Hurry up - seats are first come, first serve.”

By the time they look up, Scarlett and Lizzie are already sprinting across the park away from everyone else. “Quick, quick!” Chris grabs their bags, shoving Jeremy’s at his chest and taking off. “We gotta follow the girls!”

Jeremy takes off running after him, well aware that there are a couple of teams right on their heels. He wonders if anyone else is from New York or whether anyone else has come up with the same strategy as them, but he keeps his eyes on Scarlett’s back as they race through the park and out into the city.

Once they are out of the park, it is game on. Scarlett and Lizzie are disappearing into a cab as they crash onto the sidewalk, Chris practically falling into the middle of the street in his haste to get a car. They beat Anthony and Sebastian into one by a couple of seconds, Chris screaming “JFK!” at the driver like he has never been under pressure before.

It takes a long time to get to JFK with the tolls and the traffic, but at least it gives them a chance to relax and pull themselves together. Jeremy has been appointed to keep track of all of the paperwork and money, and he grabs the piece of paper that Chris has crumpled up while running, shoving it into one of the pockets of the binder. “How much money do we have?” Chris asks him.

Jeremy counts it out quickly. “Hundred bucks.”

“Good. I’m starving.”

“Are you ever not?”

They tumble out onto the curb at JFK, their camera crew getting ahead of them while they grab their backpacks and throw twenty dollars at the driver, turning around to sprint into the airport. Jeremy just prays he can get through the race without tripping and falling on his face, well aware that everyone he knows and a whole lot of people he doesn’t will be watching this one day.

Scarlett, Lizzie, Anthony, and Sebastian are already at the South African Air counter, Jeremy and Chris sliding into line behind them. They are the first three teams there, a couple more coming up behind them and collapsing into line, leaning over to catch their breath.

They get their tickets, have a couple of hours until they are able to board the flight. There is only enough space for five teams on the South African Air flight, which is both the first to leave and the only one to fly direct. The rest of the teams will be stuck on one of the other flights. Once they are all sitting down at the gate, they have a chance to relax, sit down, and introduce themselves.

In addition to Scarlett and Lizzie and the frat boys, there is one of the sibling teams, Brie and Tom, and the lawyers, as Chris has already taken to calling them, Robert and Chris. They all shake hands, talking about where they are from and how they know their teammates. Jeremy keeps catching Scarlett’s eye across the circle, a smile twitching across his face when she winks at him. Eventually, they all spread out, stretching out to try to get some shut eye. Chris wanders off in search of food, taking Lizzie with him, and Jeremy finally gets his chance to talk to Scarlett.

“I know what you were doing back there,” she says. They have their backs up against the wall, backpacks dropped in front of them, and she nudges him with her elbow, grinning at him.

“What’s that?” Maybe Chris is right; maybe he really isn’t good at talking to girls. With every word she sends his way, he thinks he might hyperventilate.

“You were totally following us out of the park.”

“Well, yeah. You’re from New York.”

“So you were stalking me already, huh?”

Jeremy feels himself blush, realizes he has completely given himself away. “It’s just strategy, sweetheart.”

“Well,” she says, her tone conversational. “I wouldn’t be opposed to working together. I like the feeling of being first and I kind of want to stay there.”

He wonders if this is something that she has been thinking about or if it is a spur of the moment idea, but obviously he isn’t going to say no. “Let’s do it. Although I can’t promise we won’t take first right out from under you.”

By the time Chris and Lizzie get back, laden with bottles of water and chocolate bars and People magazine, Lizzie dumping her loot into Scarlett’s lap and plopping down, he has already learned a lot about her. She is New York born and raised; she just graduated from Columbia with a business degree; she is planning on going back to school at some point, but wants an adventure first; she has been best friends with Lizzie for four years. There is still a whole lot he doesn’t know about her, but he has the overwhelming feeling that he wants to find out.

“We formed an alliance,” Scarlett tells Lizzie as she pops the top off a bottle of water.

“With these dead weights?” Lizzie asks, but the smile on her face gives her away. Chris snorts.

“Keep it up, Olsen,” he says. “We’ll be seeing who needs who.”

A couple of hours later, the plane is taking off, Jeremy sandwiched in between Chris and Scarlett, and he thinks that maybe he has died and gone to heaven, not sure what he has done to deserve her arm brushing up against his for fifteen hours. At one point, she falls asleep, her head dropping down onto his shoulder, and for the three hours that she is sleeping he manages to stay completely still, not wanting to move one muscle for fear that she might wake up and move away. She smells like sunshine and coconut, and somehow she makes him feel like he is home. Chris keeps shooting Jeremy glances, which he gamely tries to ignore. He had realized on the way from Seattle to New York that he is a nervous flier, but for some reason now he feels totally calm.

Fifteen hours later, they land in Johannesburg, and there is a mad scramble to get off the plane and out of the airport. They have almost no information about what is waiting for them; all they know is that they are looking for a yellow and white flag. It is there in the terminal, Chris getting there first and grabbing one clue for themselves and one for Lizzie and Scarlett. “Head to Lanseria Airport,” Jeremy reads. “Seats are still first come, first serve.” They jog out of the airport, jumping into one of the taxis waiting there.

They pass another taxi on the road, Chris leaning over to peer out the window. “Who is it?” Jeremy asks.

“I think it’s the lawyers,” he says. “Yeah, it’s the lawyers.” The lawyers are Robert Downey Jr. (“You don’t have to call me all that,” he said when he introduced himself to them at the airport back in New York) and Chris Pratt. There is a lot of stiff competition in the race, but Jeremy already has an eye on the two of them.

The tiny airport appears in front of them suddenly, three cars pulling up and spitting out their teams. They race into the building, the lawyers right behind them and the girls slightly in front. They manage to overtake Scarlett and Lizzie on the stairs up to the ticket office, sliding into first place breathlessly. They all get on the first charter flight out, Chris letting out a whoop in the near empty airport.

It doesn’t leave until the morning, throwing their first real decision of the race at them. The lawyers want to save money, decide to camp out in the airport. Before Jeremy knows it, they are spread out on the floor, snoring away.

“No,” Chris says firmly, frowning when he sees them. “I can’t do that. My back is killing me and I need a real bed.”

“Okay.” Jeremy glances at Scarlett and Lizzie, who have collapsed into the uncomfortable plastic chairs lined up in the center of the room. “So what’s your master plan?”

Chris looks around. “I’m not sure yet,” he says. “Stay here.” Jeremy sinks down in the chair next to Scarlett, dropping his backpack to the ground and feeling every vertebrae in his spine click when he stretches. Chris comes back a couple of minutes later. “Okay,” he says, and Jeremy is so grateful that he is taking charge because he doesn’t think he can stay awake long enough to make any decisions at this point. “There are little cabins behind the airport. If the four of us split one, it won’t completely drain us of money.”

“Yes,” Scarlett says quickly, looking at Jeremy. He just nods, trying to keep his eyes open. The wave of exhaustion hit him the second he sat down, all of the adrenaline quickly draining out of his veins and leaving him completely spent. “Please. I need a bed and a shower and something to eat other than peanut M&Ms.”

“Hey,” Lizzie says. She is leaning back, Chris’s baseball hat over her eyes. “I busted my ass to get you those M&Ms.”

“You flirted with the flight attendant until she gave you extra.”

“I did what I had to do, and you’ll be grateful for it.”

It takes all of the energy Jeremy has just to stand up, Scarlett sticking her hand out for him to pull her up. She slides her arm around his waist easily, like they have known each other for their entire lives and not less than twenty-four hours, but traveling around the world with someone sure is an easy way to figure out how you fit into their life.

* * *

Scarlett has never been this tired in her life. She is sure of it.

There has been a big wave of adrenaline carrying her through these first panicked moments in New York, although she manages to fall asleep against Jeremy’s shoulder on the plane. She keeps waking up, realizing where she is, and doing her best to stay completely still, not wanting the moment to end just yet. And now here they are in South Africa, and he is practically carrying her to a cabin, her brain foggy and her eyes blurry with exhaustion.

She has gotten to know a lot about him over the past day of sitting in airports and on planes. He has been a firefighter for almost twelve years, ever since he graduated high school. He is from a tiny town in Washington, but he lives in Seattle with Chris. He wants a dog, but there is no way in hell he can get one until he stops living at the station four or five days a week. He is ultra-competitive, although she can instantly see the softer side of him behind his eyes when he looks at her. He is single, a nugget of information that he volunteers even when she doesn’t ask him about it.

Oh, yeah, and she is completely head over heels for him, which is why she has immediately suggested that they stick together. She wants to spend as much time with him as she can. Thankfully, Lizzie is none the wiser so far, but she knows that won’t last long.

“Do you want to shower first?” he asks as Chris unlocks the door and immediately throws himself across one of the beds. It seems like he is asleep within seconds. Lizzie drops her bag on the floor, looking around. There are only two beds; they will have to squeeze into one together, but she has honestly never been more excited to sleep in her entire life.

“No, go ahead.” She throws her backpack on the ground next to Lizzie’s. “I’m going to stay in there as long as possible, so you should probably go first.”

Jeremy’s eyes linger on her for a few seconds before he disappears into the bathroom and she plops herself down on the couch, her face burning. Lizzie narrows her eyes at her, but Scarlett doesn’t say anything. “So…” Lizzie says after a while. “Now what?”

All Scarlett wants to do is brush her teeth, and she unzips her backpack, feeling around in the bottom for the little quilted bag where she shoved all of her bathroom stuff. She hears the water in the bathroom turn on, and she has to stop herself from sitting down on the edge of the bed for fear that she will pass out. “Did you set an alarm for tomorrow?”

“Not yet.” Lizzie sits down, pulling her watch closer to her face and squinting at it. “What time do we have to be up?”

“Plane leaves at six so - oh fuck!”

“What?” Lizzie’s eyes are wide. “What’s wrong?”

Scarlett squeezes her eyes shut, like if she can’t see what is happening then maybe it will reverse itself. She holds her bathroom bag out to Lizzie wordlessly, although you can probably see from across a football field that the toothpaste has exploded, coating everything in the bag in white.

“Shit,” Lizzie says, her voice low. “Shit, Scar, I’m sorry.” Scarlett just glares at her, willing her not to say another word, but Lizzie can never help herself. “If only we had another tube of toothpaste?” she says, her voice small, trying to crack a joke.

“Don’t even talk to me right now.” Scarlett stands up, not thinking before she stalks over to the bathroom door, knocking on it sharply.

“Scar, I-”

“Don’t even, LO. I fucking told you-” Her lecture dies in her throat when Jeremy opens the bathroom door.

“You okay?” She has to force herself to look him in the eye, steam filling the bathroom and beading up on his chest, his clothes in a pile on the floor behind him and a towel wrapped around his waist. If she wasn’t blushing before, she sure as hell is now.

“I… uh…” She couldn’t force a sentence if her life depended on it. “Toothpaste,” she blurts out.

“You need some?”

“If you can spare it.” Looking him in the eye is hard enough, but she can’t look away, knowing that if she does she will get stuck on the defined muscles in his shoulders and the hard ridges of his abs.

“Yeah, yeah.” He reaches behind him, grabbing a tube off the counter and handing it to her. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” she mutters, backing away and knowing that her cheeks are as red as her hair. “I owe you.”

“Don’t worry about it, Scar,” he says, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth before he shuts the door. She is going to kill Lizzie. That is for damn sure.

* * *

Jeremy owes Lizzie big time.

He doesn’t know what the hell happened while he was in the bathroom, but by the time he gets out of the shower, trading places with Scarlett, Lizzie is fast asleep on one of the beds next to Chris. He doesn’t know what to do, sits down on the other bed for a second to contemplate whether or not he should wake up Chris, and he ends up falling asleep, waking up with the room dark and the sky bright with stars out the window. Scarlett is curled up next to him, her even breathing falling over his shoulder.

He doesn’t dare move, just looks at her for a few seconds before drifting back into sleep himself.

Now it is five o’clock, and the room is awash in movement, the alarms on their watches going off simultaneously and jerking them all awake. Scarlett sits up carefully, Jeremy’s side still warm from where she has been pressed up against him all night. “Sorry,” she mumbles, rubbing her eyes. “I was just so tired.”

“No, I… It’s… Don’t worry about it,” he says, stumbling over his words. He needsto shake this off. They have a big day ahead of them.

“What do you think we’re going to do today?” Lizzie asks.

“I don’t know,” Chris says, stretching. “But if I don’t get to see an elephant while we are here, I’m going to riot, I swear to God.”

“We’ll find you an elephant, Evans.”

Jeremy yawns so much that his jaw cracks; he knows he has to get up and get moving, but he feels like his legs won’t work. They are so used to being suddenly awoken when they are on shift that he hasn’t really fallen completely asleep in years, but here in the middle of South Africa in a bed next to Scarlett, he realizes that he has slept better than he has in over a decade. He doesn’t know if it is the African air or the fact that she is next to him, and he doesn’t want to think about it too hard.

Whatever had happened between Scarlett and Lizzie the night before seems to have passed, the two of them bickering good-naturedly as they pack up all of the clothes that have somehow been strewn around the room and jostle for position in front of the bathroom mirror.

The sun is barely peeking over the horizon as they let themselves out of the cabin, the air chilly around them. There is a small prop plane visible on the runway, and it is a quick walk over to the airport, passing through it quickly and being ushered out onto the tarmac. The plane is running, engine humming.

“Fuck, that’s small,” Lizzie says under her breath as Chris hoists her up into it, handing her backpack up to her once she is fully inside. Jeremy does the same with Scarlett, steadying her with his hand on her back. She collapses into a seat next to Lizzie, Jeremy and Chris settling down across from them. The lawyers come tumbling in a few seconds later, and they only sit there for a few minutes before the plane takes off, rising quickly into the sky.

It is a beautiful flight, clouds drifting below them and the whole world lush and green and untouched. Jeremy can see Lizzie gripping Scarlett’s hand tightly, Scarlett pointing at things out the window the entire time. Chris takes the time to pull out the map he has swiped from the airport, looking at the big landmarks and tiny villages and trying to figure out where the hell they are going to go. Jeremy just sits back, enjoying the view and the company and the experience.

Not even an hour later, they touch down at the Livingstone Airport, now officially in Zambia. There is a mad dash to get off the plane, everyone pushing and shoving, the yellow flags visible at the front of the airport. Jeremy and Chris get there first, Chris practically knocking the entire clue box over when he is unable to stop in time.

“There is a fleet of cars in front of the airport,” he reads quickly, their camera crew circling them and zooming in. “Choose one. You can drive yourselves or hire a driver, but drivers cannot provide directions.” Chris looks up. “What do you want to do?”

Scarlett and Lizzie have already taken off, sprinting through the airport. “We’ll figure it out,” Jeremy yells over his shoulder, running after them. There are eleven Jeeps lined up in a row in front of the airport, drivers standing by. Scarlett has grabbed another clue from underneath the windshield of one of the Jeeps and is ripping it open.

“Driver!” Chris yells after him. “Get a driver!”

Jeremy runs to one of the Jeeps, holding out his hand to the man standing next to it. “Hi,” he says, panting. “I’m Jeremy and this is Chris.” He can hear one of the lawyers screaming “hurry up!” in the background.

“Maxwell,” the driver says, shaking his hand.

Chris is already reading the next clue. “Get yourself to the smoke that thunders,” he says. “Then walk the Knife’s Edge.” Jeremy starts throwing their backpacks in the back of the Jeep. “What sort of fucking riddle is this?” Chris asks, climbing in the front seat next to Maxwell. Dave and Don settle into the back next to Jeremy, and they peel out of the parking lot, narrowly missing hitting the back of the lawyers’ Jeep.

“See you there!” Lizzie screams out the window as the girls pass them.

“It’s Victoria Falls,” Chris says as soon as they make it out onto the main road. “It has to be.”

“You know where we’re going?”

Chris pulls the map out of his pocket, smoothing it out onto his lap before turning it ninety degrees and then another ninety degrees. Why they had decided he would be in charge of navigation is quickly becoming a mystery to Jeremy; the man can barely make it through downtown Seattle, even with Google Maps screaming at him. They might have to re-evaluate. “Yes,” he says finally, pointing up ahead. “Maxwell, stay on this for a while, and then we’re going to take a right.”

They drive for about twenty minutes before they take a turn and all of a sudden the waterfall is visible in the distance. It is like nothing Jeremy has ever seen before, the thundering of the water audible even with all of the windows rolled up, and the mist from the water crashing into the ravine below rises high over the treeline. “Holy shit,” he says. “Look at that.”

“The smoke that thunders,” Chris says, nodding firmly. “I was right.”

Once they get onto a flat stretch of open road, it is a fight for first. All eleven teams are bunched up together, the other charter flights landing within minutes of theirs. Anthony and Sebastian fly past them, and it looks like they have opted not to go with a driver, Anthony behind the wheel which could be a dangerous game for all of them. They are also overtaken by the engaged couple, Michael and Tessa.

“Come on, man,” Jeremy says. “Step on it.” Maxwell accelerates, their Jeep moving quickly past the girls’ and taking off after the two leading teams. Horns are blaring, people swerving into the center of the road to stop other teams from passing, cars weaving around each other. “This ain’t child’s play, huh?”

“Go, Maxwell, go around him!” Chris says, his voice rising as he points. “Nice job, Maxwell, beautiful job.”

They fly down the last stretch, veering off the road at the entrance to Victoria Falls, where there is a small parking lot and a visitor’s center. Two Jeeps are already in the parking lot, Chris and Jeremy jumping out, grabbing their backpacks, and yelling thank you to Maxwell, unsure of whether or not they will be back. It is so quiet in the visitor’s center that you can hear a pin drop when they crash through the door. Anthony and Sebastian pass them on their way in, sprinting back out the door. Tessa is leaning over the counter, whispering something to the person behind it.

When it is Jeremy’s turn, he doesn’t bother to whisper. “Knife’s Edge,” he blurts out, trying to catch his breath. “Can you tell me where that is?”

Once they get their answer, they run out of the visitor’s center as fast as they can. All of the other teams seem to be there, running around the entrance to the park like chickens with their heads cut off. “This way!” he hears Scarlett scream from across the clearing, and they sprint towards her voice. “Come on!”

“Ev!” He hears Paul yelling. “The footpath goes this way and this way!”

“Straight?” Brie is screaming to Tom as he passes her.

It is chaos.

They run through the forest, the noise of the waterfall getting louder and louder and letting them know that they are going in the right direction. Eventually the canopy of trees opens up, and suddenly they are standing right in front of it, a narrow wooden bridge slippery with water in front of them. Jeremy is so in awe of what he is looking at that at first he doesn’t notice what is going down.

“No, no. Nope,” Lizzie says. “Uh-uh. Absolutely not. I am not going across that.”

“LO, come on,” Scarlett is pleading. She points across the bridge, a rainbow streaking through the sky where the mist is rising up. Through the curtain of water, they can see a clue box standing proudly on the cliff’s edge on the other side of the bridge. “It’s right there. We just have to get there.”

“You know how I feel about heights,” Lizzie says, and she doesn’t sound like the confident, adventurous, lively person that Jeremy has gotten to know over the last day and a half. “I can’t do it.”

“You can,” Scarlett says firmly. “And you will because we have to.” She hikes her backpack further up on her shoulders, holding out her hand to Lizzie. “I’ve got you, I promise.”

Jeremy glances behind him, knowing that at any moment, another team is going to catch them. They are already third and fourth at best, and that is only if another team hasn’t found a quicker way to get to the Knife’s Edge. “We better get this moving,” he says. “Come on, Lizzie. We’ll do it together.”

It takes them longer than it should, Lizzie taking one careful step after another with Chris on one elbow, Scarlett on another, and Jeremy bringing up the rear, but finally they make it to the other side. Chris keeps his arm protectively around Lizzie as they pull a couple of clues out of the box. The water is raining down around them, streaking down the lenses of the cameras and soaking them through completely. The ink on the clue is running, Jeremy straining to see it and yelling to be heard over the sound of the water thundering down.

“Get yourself to drier land at… something something, the top of Batoka Gorge.” He shakes water out of his eyes. “That’s as best as I can do, it’s all smudged.”

“It’s fine,” Scarlett yells. “Let’s go!” They practically drag Lizzie back over the bridge, passing Chadwick and Letitia and Mark and the third Chris on their way, all of them just trying to desperately to stay ahead of Brie and Tom, who are close on their heels.

Once they are back at the cars, they pull out of the parking lot, Chris grabbing the map again. “Follow them for now, Maxwell,” he says, pointing to the girls’ car. “I’m going to figure this out as fast as I can.”

“Give me the map. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Yes I do!” Chris holds it up, pointing to a green country right in the middle. “That’s Zambia. Where we are.”

Jeremy leans closer, squinting. “That’s Namibia, jackass.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

He is hungry, wet, tired, jetlagged, and beyond nervous about what is ahead of them. It is going to be one hell of a long day, and when he glances at his watch, he sees that it is only nine in the morning. Jesus Christ.

They have to pull over for directions multiple times, stopping to ask random people on the road where the hell Batoka Gorge is. Nobody seems to know. At one point someone tells Jeremy to go left at the big tree, and when he relays that message to Chris, he thinks Chris is going to come into the backseat and strangle him.

“Renner, come on! Get in the car!” Chris screams at him from the window. “He told me the same thing! Get in the car!”

“You have to be nice to these people!”

“Renner, stop-”

“You can’t be yelling at me when I’m trying to be nice! You have to get out of the car!”

“You’re so dumb-”

“You have to approach people in an affable, friendly manner! We can’t do it like we’re in fucking Seattle!”

“Don’t listen to a word he is saying, Maxwell,” Chris says once the yelling has subsided. “You’re doing a great job. Don’t listen to him.”

“You’re an idiot!” Jeremy says exasperatedly. “He said go to the main road, take a right, and then a left at the big tree.”

“The big tree. Those are the directions you got. The big fucking tree. Un-fucking-believable.”

Eventually they make it, pulling off the dirt road into a clearing. They lost the girls at some point, but their Jeep is there. Jeremy has no idea how far in front of them they are. They run through the trees, taking a gamble and leaving their backpacks in the Jeep this time. Suddenly a giant canyon appears in front of them, the earth falling away at least three hundred feet down to a nest of trees.

“Whoa,” Chris says as they run along the edge. “I have a feeling this is going to be wild.”

The clue is for a Detour. “To travel by air,” Jeremy reads. “Take a quick ride along the zipline.” He can hear someone yelling, the sound of their voice traveling through the ravine and echoing back. His first thought is of Lizzie; there is no way in hell she is going to be able to do this. They are sheltered from the edge of the cliff by a copse of trees, but it sounds like Anthony yelling “hell yeah!” “And then a fast swing to the bottom of the gorge.”

“Oh, we’re doing it,” Chris says immediately.

“To travel by land, take a long walk down to the bottom of the gorge.” Jeremy crumples up the clue, shoving it in his pocket. “Yep. No question.”

They keep walking until they get to a wooden platform, a zipline strung up and disappearing across the gorge. Lizzie and Scarlett are already there; they have harnesses on, but Lizzie is leaning over, her hands on her knees. As they watch , Chadwick climbs up onto the platform, someone hooking him onto the zipline.

“Look, LO,” Scarlett is saying as Jeremy and Chris come up behind them. She has her hand on Lizzie’s back, is rubbing it comfortingly, but it doesn’t seem to be making much of a difference. “It’s fine, look. It’s not that bad.”

“This part isn’t that bad,” Lizzie says, sounding like she is hyperventilating. “What about the whole jumping off the cliff part?”

“Oh you’re gonna do it,” Chris says, coming up next to her. Scarlett whips around, her eyes catching Jeremy’s immediately. “You’re gonna bungee jump, Olsen.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes you can. You’re gonna bungee jump your ass off, sweetheart.” He kneels down, taking Scarlett’s place and putting his hand on Lizzie’s back. “You’re not going to walk all the way down to the bottom. It’s just one quick step and you’re done.”

“It’s a big fucking step, Evans!”

Scarlett comes over to Jeremy as they argue. “You nervous?”

“Hell no.” He watches Letitia fly across the gorge on the zipline, following her brother. More teams are starting to arrive, stacking up behind them. “You?”

“I’m nervous she won’t do it,” Scarlett says. “We don’t have the time to waste hiking down. Pretty much everyone is here.”

She is right; Jeremy doesn’t know how many teams have beat them here, but there are six or seven starting to mill around the clearing, stepping into harnesses, strapping on helmets, bouncing up and down excitedly, or throwing up into the bushes in Mark’s case. Camera crews are running around, trying to capture everything before they have to hike down to the bottom.

“She’ll do it,” Jeremy says. “If anyone can convince her, it’s Chris.”

Finally, Chris convinces Lizzie to at least do the zipline, telling her that they will deal with the bungee jump when they get there. She agrees, as long as he and Jeremy go first. So Jeremy keeps his eyes on Scarlett as someone straps his harness on, only looking away when it is time to climb up the platform and push off. She winks at him as his feet leave the ground.

It is beautiful. It seems like every new place he sees tops the last. The ground drops away from him, leaving him floating high in the sky, the trees giant and green underneath, the sky giant and blue overhead. He can see a river rushing down below them, breaking in white over the rocks. He tilts his head back, letting out a whoop, and it is over all too soon, someone grabbing him on the opposite side as he slides into the platform, helping him down. Chris follows shortly, yelling the whole way.

“Come on, baby!” Chris screams across the ravine to Lizzie. “It’s nothing! You’re gonna love it! Close your eyes and it’ll be over it no time!”

Jeremy doesn’t know the conversation Scarlett and Lizzie are having on the other side, but soon after Lizzie comes flying over to their side. When Chris helps her down, she is visibly shaking. “This fucking sucks,” she says, jumping down from the platform, holding onto Chris’s arm in a death grip. “I hate this.”

“Only one more,” he says, grinning down at her. “One more and then we’re home free.”

Once Scarlett is safely back on land, they run towards the second platform, about fifty yards down from the first. As they make their way over to it, picking their way along the dirt path and trying to keep Lizzie from looking over the edge of the cliff, Jeremy sees Chadwick jump off.

It is a straight shot down, almost three hundred feet, and it is a complete free fall until the rope goes taut, catching him and swinging him back and forth like a giant pendulum. “Oh my God,” Lizzie says, her voice breaking. “Oh my God, no, no, no. I can’t do this, I can’t do this, oh my God, I can’t do this.”

She keeps that up until they make it to the second platform. “You’re gonna go first, Lizzie,” Chris says. “It’s going to be easier if you don’t have to watch us all jump too.”

“It’s going to be easier if I don’t have to do it at all!”

As they are standing there listening to the instructions (“Take one step straight out. Don’t jump or go headfirst. Hold up the harness so it doesn’t get tangled. Deep breaths.”), Scarlett slips her hand into Jeremy’s, and it feels like she is shaking. “You okay?”

“Yes.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m not scared of heights but… this is really high.”

“Like Chris said. One step and it’s over.”

“And I’m worried about that whole holding up the harness thing.” She nudges him in the side with her elbow. “I’m just not good at holding things up.” Jeremy snorts.

It takes them a while to even convince Lizzie to climb the stairs. She looks tiny up there, the bungee hooked up to her harness, holding it up like they have been taught. “Come on!” Chris is trying to hype her up. They can hear how hard she is breathing from the ground, little whimpers coming out between each breath. “Come on, Lizzie! You got this!”

“It’s all part of the race,” Jeremy hears her mumbling to herself. “I’ll make it. Gotta do it. I’m not gonna fucking walk.”

“Are you ready?” the guide asks her, pulling back on the rope until she is ready to jump.

“No, no. Not yet.”

“It’s okay, Lizzie,” he says encouragingly. “Ready now?”

“No, no, wait.”

“You can do it. Just a small step, that’s all.”

To Jeremy, it feels like forever, watching her take one more deep breath and stick a foot out over the ledge into the open air. And then she is falling, for what seems like an hour, the rope finally catching her and swinging her out over the trees and the river. She is screaming wordlessly, and Jeremy can see her raise her arms in the air once she starts to slow down. “Fuck yeah!” Everyone laughs, Scarlett stepping up to the platform next.

“Are you ready, Scarlett?” the guide asks.

She doesn’t need to be told twice. “Oh hell yeah,” she says, launching herself off the platform. Jeremy feels like his heart is falling with her, and when he watches her take a flying leap into thin air, he knows he is completely smitten with her.

Jeremy goes next, concentrating on holding up the bungee so that he won’t throw up at the thought of falling that far. But he does it, doesn’t want to look like he is nervous even though he is a little bit. And he jumps, his heart in his throat, unable to say a word until he gets to the bottom. As he swings back and forth, he looks around, trying to take in the moment because he won’t ever get another one like it. Scarlett and Lizzie are waiting for him at the bottom, Scarlett grabbing him in a hug as soon as he gets unhooked from the bungee.

Now that he is done, he feels almost giddy, turning around just in time to see Chris jump. He lets out a roar on the way down, the sound filling the canyon and echoing around them. “Swing, you bastard, swing!” Jeremy yells at him once the rope catches him at the bottom, sending him flying back and forth above them.

“I told you!” Chris is yelling as he slows to a stop. As soon as he is unhooked from the bungee, Lizzie jumps on him. “Don’t knock me off the mountain, baby, we made it this far!”

“I hated every second of it.”

“I’m proud of you!”

They get another clue, telling them to drive to Songwe Village. “The last team to check in will be eliminated,” Jeremy reads. “Well, it’s not gonna be us.” There is still a line of teams as tiny as ants up on the edge of the cliff, waiting their turn.

“God, there are a lot of bugs in the jungle,” Scarlett says as they race across the canyon back towards where they had parked. “Go figure.”

The rest of the leg is smooth sailing. It is a long run back to the cars, their camera crews meeting up with them at the bottom and running along behind them. Jeremy has no idea how they are doing it with all of their equipment; he isn’t carrying his backpack or anything, and he thinks he is dying. Chris ends up carrying Lizzie on his back for some of the way, the dust rising up thick around them and getting in their eyes and mouths and lungs.

They have to stop for directions a couple of times, but they find the village quickly, a collection of tiny huts on the edge of a cliff like the one they have just jumped off. Chris, Jeremy, and Maxwell pull in first, jumping out to grab their backpacks from the back.

It is a foot race to the finish, Jeremy and Chris just barely beating the girls onto the map. Sure, he might be in love, but he isn’t going to stop competing just because of that. Phil is waiting there with a man dressed in what looks like traditional African garb, a colorful cloak and a matching hat on top of his head.

“Congratulations,” Phil says, shaking their hands. “You are teams number four and five.”

“Thank you very much.” They stumb;e off the mat, going over to one of the huts where there is water waiting for them. They have made it through their first leg, are relatively high up in the standings, but all Jeremy can think about is lying down and sleeping for a week. Three teams are already in the hut, greeting them as they come in.

“You made it!” Brie and Tom look like they have been there for a while, have already changed into fresh clothes not caked in dirt and sweat. The lawyers and Chadwick and Letitia are already there too. “Welcome home!”

Jeremy drops his backpack on the ground, too exhausted to even grab any water, and he flops down on the dirt floor. Scarlett sits down next to him, leaning back against his chest, breathing heavily. He hooks his arm around her shoulder, watching the rest of the teams come in and the night start to fall, until Jacob and Zendaya are the only ones missing.

“You know what?” she asks, turning to him at one point.

“What’s that?”

She smiles, barely visible in the dark. “I’m glad we’re doing this together.”

And he is sure in that moment that even with the exhaustion and jet lag, the sore muscles and the hunger, the uncertainty and nerves and anxiety, there is nowhere else in the world he would rather be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7vfpk7ZKqu0ZSnYKahc96T?si=6z7RCSAvTpuT4Ou_lNp0_w


	4. it was clearer than a lightning strike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> looking back to the young years, it must have been late midnight  
> i saw the colors move, me and you, it was clearer than a lightning strike  
> it's like the currents out in the great deep blue  
> there's a force that is occurring, it's pulling me to you  
> / currents by the national parks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fell behind because i took last week off of writing, so i figured i might as well crank out two chapters in one week! the truth is that i love writing these four nincompoops so much and it's coming really easily right now, so hopefully things stay that way.
> 
> chapter title is from "currents" by the national parks (spoiler alert: every chapter title will be from a national parks song because i am beyond obsessed) but it is also a reference to emily's fic "lightning strikes at sunset" which is also rennerson. if you haven't read it (although let's be real, everyone here has read everything emily has ever done because she is the queen) check it out on her ao3 @taylorswift. it is perfect and gorgeous and everything that i hope this will be.
> 
> come find me on instagram at @amandaalexands and tumblr at @clintxbarton!

Sure, they have come in fifth on the first leg instead of being eliminated right away, but Scarlett is still pretty positive that her biggest achievement so far has been engineering a way to sleep in the same bed as Jeremy Renner for two nights in a row.

They stay up for hours after they make it to the pit stop, knowing full well that they have to leave in exactly twelve hours but not wanting to miss out on anything. Everyone gathers in one of the huts, drinking cocktails and making a fire and talking and laughing and getting to know each other. They all wait up for Zendaya and Jacob to get in; they had gotten horrifically lost, driving around the African countryside for hours before finally rolling in once night had fallen and the village was completely dark.

Once Phil tells them that they are eliminated, everyone starts to scatter to their own little cabins. Lizzie and Chris are nowhere to be seen; they had run off in the commotion that ensued when the last Jeep pulled in, and Scarlett doesn’t particularly want to go looking for them.

It seems like the village has just been full of life and energy and movement, and then suddenly it is just the two of them, sitting around the fire that is burning down to embers. “Well,” she says, looking around like she is surprised that Lizzie is nowhere to be found. It is a Lizzie move, and Scarlett isn’t shocked in the least. “It looks like my teammate disappeared. With your teammate apparently.”

“Huh.” He looks around, also feigning surprise, but a smile is tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Look at that.” A shiver goes down her spine, and she doesn’t know if it is because the temperature has dropped drastically since the sun went down or if it is the way he is looking at her, but he stands up, brushing off his shorts. “I’ll walk you to your cabin.”

But when she tries to get in, the door is locked, and if Lizzie doesn’t want to be bothered then Scarlett certainly isn’t going to argue with that. “Can I stay with you?” she asks boldly, well aware of the fact that she has never put herself out there so strongly with someone before. But she has certainly never felt this way about Colin or Ryan or Justin. There is no benchmark for how she is supposed to be acting.

Jeremy clears his throat, and she immediately starts thinking that maybe she has overstepped, maybe he is trying to think of a polite way to tell her no. But then he speaks, his “yes” emphatic, and she follows him to his cabin, just a couple of doors down. It is small, the floor hard-packed clay and the bed tiny, but she isn’t complaining.

“I, uh…” He hooks his thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll give you a second to get changed.”

He gives her more than a second; by the time he comes back into the room, she has already stripped off her dusty clothes, showered, swiped some more of his toothpaste, and gotten settled into bed. Even so, he knocks on the door, asking “you good?” before he comes back into the cabin.

She tries to just close her eyes and go to sleep, but she can’t stop herself from looking at him as he pulls his shirt off over his head, every muscle in his back defined and tensed. She lets herself relax while he is in the shower, quickly shutting her eyes when the light goes out and the door creaks open. He doesn’t say anything, but a couple of seconds later she feels the bed shift and the blanket lift up as he crawls underneath, careful not to touch her.

Scarlett doesn’t think that she will ever be able to fall asleep, not with him that close, but the jet lag and exhaustion catch up to her quickly. She wakes up in the middle of the night to find him turned toward her, one arm slung over her, his breathing deep and even, and she just smiles, closing her eyes and falling back asleep.

They only sleep for a couple of hours; they had gotten in at one in the afternoon, so they have to leave at one in the morning. Their watch alarms blare at about twelve-thirty, leaving them just enough time to get up, get dressed, grab their shit, and get out the door.

Lizzie and Chris are waiting for them outside the cabin door. “What the hell were you doing?” Lizzie hisses to Scarlett so the boys won’t hear. They are having a hushed conversation of their own off to the side.

“What was I doing?” Scarlett asks incredulously. “What were you doing?”

“Sleeping! I’m fucking exhausted.”

“Yeah, I’m sure the race is why you’re exhausted.” Scarlett rolls her eyes, and Lizzie pushes her sideways gently.

“Whatever.” She smirks. “We better get going.”

They walk across the dark village in silence towards the clue box. Chadwick and Letitia had made it to the pit stop just minutes before them, and in the light of the moon they can see the two of them sprinting towards the cars.

“I miss Maxwell,” Scarlett hears Chris say.

“If you don’t shut up about Maxwell…”

Chris ignores Jeremy, slinging one arm around Lizzie and the other around Scarlett. Kat scampers ahead of them, swinging back around to catch the moment. “It’s the four of us all the way to the end,” Chris says. “Right?”

The girls nod. “Absolutely.” Scarlett reaches over, linking her arm through Jeremy’s, and the four of them approach the box together, only letting go of each other when it is right in front of them.

“You are well acquainted with Songwe Village. Now make your way to the Songwe Museum,” Jeremy reads once they pull two clues out of the box and rip them open. He turns it over, looking at the back. “That’s it?”

Scarlett grabs it from him, scanning the words. Yep. That was definitely it.

“Okay,” Chris says, taking charge. “Let’s go.”

They follow him to the cars; something doesn’t seem right, but Scarlett can’t put her finger on it. “Maxwell!” she hears Chris shout, and next to her Jeremy snorts, raising his eyebrows when he looks at her. “We have to go to the Songwe Museum,” Chris is saying. “I feel like I saw a sign for it.”

So she gets in the backseat of her car, Lizzie taking her turn driving, and they follow the boys out of the village and onto a main road. It is pitch black, animals howling in the distance and the road only visible by the few feet of light that the car is throwing out. She is glad she isn’t driving.

They drive around for hours. They don’t see any signs, and they stop every single car on the road that passes them, asking everyone if they know where the Songwe Museum is. No one does. Eventually, they come upon a nearby town, small but lit up with lights. No one there knows where the museum is either. Lizzie is getting increasingly more frustrated, and all of Scarlett’s energy is devoted to keeping her calm.

“This is fucking ridiculous!” she bursts out as another car drives off, the passengers unable to help them. “We were staying in the Songwe fucking Village! How far away from that could it be?”

“Shit,” Jeremy says, and he tips his head back in frustration. “I know where it is.”

“Do you actually?” Lizzie asks, planting a hand on her hip and frowning at him. Strips of light are starting to appear over the horizon, painting the sky pastel orange and pink and purple. Their only saving grace at this point is that they have seen practically every other team that has been allowed to leave the village pass them as they drive back and forth, everyone else just as lost as they are. There are still teams back at the pit stop, waiting to start, so if they can just get to this damn museum soon, they won’t be out of the race yet. “Or are you just saying that because you don’t want me to actually murder you?”

“Don’t worry, Liz,” he says easily. He has the most calming presence, his voice low and even and sending a shiver down Scarlett’s spine. “I got you.”

It takes them about thirty minutes to get back to the village, their cars bumping over the uneven road and water rushing across the dirt in places where the river has spilled over, back through the gates and to a stop where they started. “Here it is,” Jeremy says, leading them to a small, nondescript building in the center of the village, a small sign planted in front that clearly reads “Museum.”

“Jesus Christ,” Lizzie says. “It’s been here the entire fucking time?”

“I knew I saw a sign somewhere.” Chris shrugs, and Lizzie punches him in the shoulder. “What? I got you here, didn’t I?”

“No,” she says indignantly. “Renner did. You took us on a wild goose chase.”

“Okay, okay,” Scarlett says , cutting them off before they can waste any more time. “Let’s go in.” They all follow her into the tiny open air hut that makes up the museum, the path behind it lit up by lanterns. They follow the path into the space behind the museum, a large stone table set up with yellow and white flags, a whole mess of clues, a couple of carved wooden animals, and ten cameras wrapped in plastic.

“Detour,” Lizzie says, ripping a clue open.

“Elephant!” Chris says, grabbing one of the wooden animals off the table, examining it closely. “This better be a fucking safari or I’m going to lose it.”

“You’re in luck, Evans,” she says, their bickering from before already forgotten. “Near or far. Your task is to photograph African wildlife,” she reads. “For near, you must travel to the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, only twenty kilometers away, and photograph three hard-to-find animals from a provided list of five: giraffe, impala, water buffalo, zebra, or rhino.”

“I did not hear elephant in that list, Olsen.”

“Keep your pants on.” She keeps reading. “For far, you must travel to Chobe National Park in the nearby nation of Botswana, one hundred and ten kilometers away, and photograph a single elephant.”

“Oh, we are going far,” Chris says. “You bet your ass we are going far. I didn’t come all the way here to not see an elephant.”

Scarlett is barely paying attention, focusing more on Jeremy next to her, his arm pressed up against hers as he leans on the table, listening to Lizzie. “Y’all wanna come with us?” Jeremy asks her. “Do the far?”

She nods, and he sticks out his hand for her to fist bump him. Like there is a snowman’s chance in hell she is going to say no and insist that they split up. “Let’s do it.”

“Chris,” Jeremy says after they have already started sprinting back down the path, stopping them all in their tracks. “Put it back.”

“Come on!” Scarlett looks behind them to see the two boys arguing. “Just let me take it!”

“No way.” Jeremy is pointing back towards where they came, Chris rolling his eyes and running over to put the elephant statue back on the table before racing them to the cars and practically throwing Lizzie into the front seat of their Jeep.

Two more Jeeps pass them on their way in as they are leaving, Scarlett whipping around to try to see who is in them. “Can you tell?” Lizzie asks her, squinting at the road.

“T and B,” she says. “And I think Smackie.”

“Well, we aren’t going out this round,” Lizzie says confidently.

So far, Scarlett hasn’t thought much about being eliminated. They have been at the front of the pack for the entire race so far, and she has been so focused on building their friendship with Chris and Jeremy that the thought of losing hasn’t really crossed her mind. But now with the first team eliminated and everyone on each other’s heels, it will only take one mistake, one slip up, one wrong turn or difficult task or misunderstood direction for them to be the next ones gone.

She has just found Jeremy. She isn’t prepared to lose him yet.

* * *

Chris will not shut up about the fucking elephants.

He has been talking about elephants since the second they got into the cab in New York City, right after they found out that they were going to South Africa, and he has not let up since. Thankfully, Jeremy has something on his mind to tune Chris out.

And that something is Scarlett Johansson.

Jeremy has dated girls before. He had been with the same girl for most of high school because that’s what everyone did in the tiny town where he grew up. He had broken up with her the second that he had moved to Seattle to go to the academy. Ever since then, he has drifted, being a wingman for Chris and entertaining girls at the bar while Chris hits on their friends. He has had some one night stands, gone on a few first dates that led to even less second and third dates, never hitting a fourth. He just hasn’t been that interested.

Until now.

To say he is interested in Scarlett would be an understatement. He was interested in her when he saw her picture on the website, and the second he met her he knew that this girl was different, that this girl was the one for him.

He has no idea how she felt about him, whether she is thinking the same things, but if the fact that she has ended up in his bed two nights in a row is any indication, he figures his chances look pretty good.

Speaking of… “Where did you go last night?”

Chris shrugs, suddenly very focused on the map he is holding even though Jeremy knows he has little to no idea how to read it. “Just hanging out with Lizzie.”

“And that required a locked door?”

Chris shrugs again, refusing to turn around and look at Jeremy. Maxwell looks like he is holding back a grin, a muscle in his cheek twitching. “Are you complaining? You got to sleep with Scar, didn’t you?”

“Not like that,” Jeremy says quickly, suddenly very aware of the fact that a camera is capturing this entire conversation. It has only been a couple of days, but he has already gotten so used to Don and Dave being around that he has completely forgotten that they are there.

“Well.” Chris clears his throat. “I can’t help you with that, brother. You’ll have to get laid all on your own.”

“Come on, man.” Jeremy rolls his eyes, propping an elbow up on the window and looking out at the fields and trees whipping by them. “It ain’t like that.”

“Sure, sure.”

Chobe National Park is a two hour drive, a country border, and a ferry ride away, and Jeremy ends up falling asleep in the backseat of the Jeep, his head balanced against the window. He hadn’t gotten a ton of sleep the night before, was too busy thinking about where they would be going and what they would be doing, those questions interspersed with thoughts of Scarlett every time she moved, pressing up against him and sending shockwaves through his brain.

He had woken up before her, just a half an hour before his alarm was set to go off, and his arm was hooked across her, pulling her tight against his chest. He stopped himself before he could jerk back, inevitably waking her up too, and instead he just lay there, breathing her in and pulling away before her alarm went off. They have spent the entirety of the race together, and he finds himself falling for her even more with everything that she does and every word that she speaks.

He just needs to find the right time to express that because it certainly isn’t going to be while jumping off a mountain or looking for an elephant. And he doesn’t know what to say; how do you tell someone that they are the person you have been looking for your entire life, even if you didn’t know it?

Hopefully he will have plenty of time to figure that out. They have been at the front of the pack, and he intends to stay there.

Jeremy glances at his watch as they pull up to the entrance of the park. It is seven thirty; the last team, Zoe and Karen, will just now be leaving the pit stop, and if the last couple of teams go through anything like they did this morning, then their lead is pretty substantial. Scarlett pops out of the back of the Jeep, stretching her back and saying something to Hayley that Jeremy can’t hear.

“I think everyone else went near,” Chris says, looking at the parking lot that is entirely devoid of Jeeps, save for their own. “I hope we didn’t fuck ourselves.”

“Listen,” Jeremy says, trying to stay calm even though he is thinking the same damn thing. “If we did at least we’re with the girls. And you’re going to get to see an elephant.”

Chris contemplates that. “Damn straight,” he says finally. “Worth it on both counts.”

Jeremy goes over to put the top of the girls’ Jeep down while Chris does the same for their own. “Do we just go?” Scarlett asks. “Do we need to wait for someone?”

“I think we just go.” Jeremy shrugs, looking around. “Y’all wanna go first?”

“No, you go ahead. We’ll follow you.”

They drive into the park slowly, a road clear in front of them, the big gates shutting behind them. “There’s something!” Chris yells after they have been on the road for about thirty seconds. “It’s an impala!”

“That’s a goat,” Jeremy says after taking a closer look.

“Oh.” Chris holds up the Polaroid camera. “I’m gonna take a picture of it anyways.”

“You’re gonna get the windshield in it, you jerk.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He hits the button, the picture sliding out of the front of the camera. “Now we’ll remember it.” He holds it up triumphantly. Yeah, right. Like Jeremy is ever going to forget anything about this. “Keep going, Maxwell.”

“You think you’re a whatchamacallit from Animal Planet.” Next to Jeremy, Dave snorts. “Jackass.”

Scarlett and Lizzie are perched practically on top of the Jeep, fully out in the sunshine. At some point, Scarlett has taken her sweater off, the sun hitting her shoulders and already turning her skin golden. Jeremy tries to concentrate on what is around them instead of just staring at her the whole time, a feat that isn’t hard when a rhino comes wandering up the middle of the road right towards them.

“Holy shit,” he says, leaning forward and hitting Chris in the arm. “Get a picture of that.”

“Already on it.” Another photo slides out of the front of the camera, Chris passing it back to Jeremy.

“Look!” Lizzie is yelling from the top of their Jeep. Jeremy stands up, popping his head out to see where she is pointing. “Elephants!”

To their right is a herd of elephants, a few big ones and a couple of little ones. “Holy shit,” Jeremy says again. “Holy shit.” It is well worth the long drive in Jeremy’s opinion. He has never seen anything like it before, and he is sure that he never will again. They are close enough to see every wrinkle on their faces, their trunks waving back and forth lazily and their giant ears flapping away flies. “You got it?”

“I got it,” Chris says confidently, holding up the camera and accidentally taking a picture of his own eye. “Ow, fuck! I think I just blinded myself.”

“Jesus Christ, man,” Jeremy says, rolling his eyes. The girls snapped a ton of pictures right away, are looking back at them expectantly. “You alright?”

“I’m fine.” He flips the camera around, taking as many pictures of the elephants as he can. “Okay. We better go.”

It has only taken them a couple of minutes, and when they get back to the parking lot, a national park worker comes over and hands them clues. “Mukuni Village!” Chris says. “Mukuni fucking Village! That’s what the guy was talking about this morning.”

They have to drive two hours back to Mukuni Village to turn in their pictures, and Jeremy gets increasingly more worried as they go, wondering whether any other teams have decided to drive all the way to Botswana, whether anyone else has gotten lost, whether they are in last place. This is the longest that they have gone without seeing another team, save for the girls, since the race has started, and he does not have a good feeling in the pit of his stomach.

They are greeted by a whole tribe of people when they get to Mukuni Village, where they are directed to straw mats and told to sit down to wait for the tribe elder. He comes in slowly, is dressed in a colorful robe and a hat, and as they sit there he takes a big drink of water, spitting it over their heads. Jeremy shoots a sideways glance at Scarlett, winking at her and trying to take in the moment. Once the ritual is over, they stand up, bowing to him and handing him their elephant picture. He studies it for what seemed like forever, finally nodding and handing them each a clue and a small statue of the Eiffel Tower.

Holy shit. They are going to France.

* * *

“I don’t understand why Maxwell couldn’t come with us.”

“Because Maxwell lives here,” Lizzie says patiently, and Scarlett snorts into her book. “But you got your picture with him.”

“Yeah.” Chris sounds dejected. “I guess you’re right.” Next to her, Jeremy mutters a swear word under his breath, and she snorts again.

They are camped out at the airport back in Johannesburg, waiting for their flight. It has been one hell of an ordeal to try to get to Paris. Their only saving grace is that every other team is also stuck at the airport, trying to get out of South Africa. They aren’t first and they aren’t last, and Scarlett will take a solid middle for now.

It is six thousand miles from South Africa to France, and they need eight tickets total, four for them and four for the crew. “We’ll split up if we have to,” Lizzie says as they walk into the airport, having just said goodbye to Maxwell. Chris is pouting and not listening to her, but Scarlett nods, not wanting to catch Jeremy’s eye, not wanting to make it clear that she absolutely doesn’t want to leave his side. “But I would prefer not to,” she adds quickly. “I just think it’s going to be a shitshow trying to get this figured out.”

Lizzie is not wrong. To get tickets for that long of a flight on a moment’s notice is a goddamn nightmare. They go from airline to airline to airline, trying to see who has how many seats, when flights are leaving, where they are connecting, and when they will get into Paris. They pass teams all over the place, fighting or crying or sleeping, in Tom’s case. Brie has left him in a corner with all of their stuff, choosing to sprint around and get information on her own.

They see Chris and Mark at the Air France counter, arguing with one of the flight clerks. “You told us we had seats,” she can hear Chris saying in his Australian accent, loud even over the noise of the airport. “You told us we had seats and you quoted us a price and now you’re saying you have nothing?”

“Okay,” Scarlett says, moving them forward, not wanting to get in the middle of that one. “They’re not going to make this easy. We just have to keep pushing forward.” They have already been turned down by a couple of airlines who don’t have even one seat available, much less eight.

Scarlett pushes her way through the crowd up to a counter that is empty; she doesn’t even check what airline they are at because it doesn’t matter at this point. “Do you have any flights to London, any flights to Amsterdam, any flights to Brussels?” she asks the woman behind the counter. “Please, we will take anything you have.”

Over to their right, Anthony is standing at a phone carrel, slamming the phone down over and over. Sebastian is next to him, speaking in a low voice, and it looks like he is trying to calm him down. Next to him, the lawyers are huddled around a piece of paper. It doesn’t look like anyone has figured out a flight yet.

“How many seats are you looking for?” the woman asks, typing something on her computer.

“Eight,” Scarlett says quickly. “Four or eight. We would prefer eight.” The woman gets on the phone, speaking in French to someone on the other end. Scarlett slumps against the counter, her heart pounding in her chest. If they can just get flights, something, anything, then she can relax for a little bit.

Across the terminal, they hear yelling, all of them turning around to look. It looks like Evangeline is fighting with Zoe, their teammates trying to get in between them. “I don’t have time for this,” Zoe snaps at Evangeline. Her sister is pushing her back.

“What the hell is that?” Lizzie asks.

“Don’t look,” Scarlett says, making a face and turning back around. “You don’t want to get in the middle of that.” God, she is thankful they have Jeremy and Chris, if only for a little bit of moral support and a kind look when everything seems like it is falling apart.

Three hours after they get there, they finally find a flight, all of them together. They manage to get a connecting flight through Zurich; somehow, the lawyers and Michael and Tessa have gotten a direct flight, so they will be at least third, and they are on their flight with Anthony and Sebastian and Tom and Brie, but at least they have figured something out.

It is hours and hours and hours of travel, the four of them falling asleep and managing to wake up long enough to get off the plane in Zurich and back onto a different one before they fall asleep again, but finally they land at Charles de Gaulle in Paris. Scarlett follows Jeremy off the plane, keeping her eyes trained on his backpack as they run through the airport like maniacs, trying to figure out how to get outside. It is a maze of escalators and elevators and hallways, but finally they find the train station.

They aren’t enough seats for any of them to sit down on the train, but that is fine; they have been sitting for hours. Scarlett hangs onto one of the poles, Jeremy right next to her, steadying her every time the train bumps and she stumbles sideways. “You know what Paris is?” he asks her, a glint in his eyes.

“What’s that?”

“The city of love.” He winks at her, heat flushing through her body.

“Oh yeah?” She sways towards him, wanting to reach out and touch him. “I thought it was the city of lights.”

He shrugs. “Well, who doesn’t love lights?”

“It’s both,” Lizzie says irritably. She gets motion sickness, always has, and being on this train is probably killing her slowly. “Now can you stop flirting and shut up?”

Jeremy snorts; Scarlett just feels her face turning red.

They get off the train and onto the bus; it is pouring in Paris, rain falling around them and gathering in puddles on the cobblestone streets. It is beautiful, even in the rain, maybe especially in the rain, but Scarlett is too nervous to appreciate any of it. The Eiffel Tower appears suddenly in the center of the city as the bus rounds a turn. “There it is!” Lizzie says, suddenly forgetting her motion sickness.

“Oh my God,” Jeremy keeps saying as they get off the bus and walk up to the base, too tired to run. “Oh my God, it’s real.”

There is a clue box directly underneath, a yellow and white flag waving proudly, even in the rain. “It’s a Roadblock,” Scarlett says as she rips open the clue, the red face of it staring back at her with the Roadblock symbol emblazoned across it in thick black ink. “Before continuing, one of you must complete the task ahead. Choose before you open the sealed card. Clue: this task requires strong muscles and keen eyesight.”

She looks up at Lizzie. “Oh, that’s you. For sure.”

Lizzie nods. “Boys? Who’s it gonna be?”

“Evans,” Jeremy says quickly. Chris looks at him, shrugging.

“You sure?”

“Yep.”

Lizzie grabs the clue from Scarlett and opens the second sealed envelope. “Climb to the observatory floor of the tower and check out the telescopic view. We hear it’s monumental.” She looks up at Chris. “Remember that. Monumental.” He nods, dropping his backpack to the ground and stripping off his jacket and his sweatshirt. Lizzie follows suit, taking off layers and leaving her backpack next to Scarlett. “Back in a flash,” she says.

“Look for a monument!” Scarlett calls after them as they disappear into the base of the tower.

“Well,” Jeremy says, looking around. “I guess it’s just us.”

“You engineered that, didn’t you?”

He shrugs, grinning. “I saw a chance and I took it.”

There is a bench nearby, kept dry in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, and they sit down on it, dragging all four backpacks with them and piling them up in front of them to use as footrests. “It’s really something, isn’t it?” Scarlett asks, tilting her head back and looking at the mass of iron beams and wrought iron and lattice work above them.

“Yeah.” When she looks back at Jeremy, he is looking right at her, a look on his face that she doesn’t know how to read. “Really something.”

As they sit there, Michael and the second Chris, one of the lawyers, come sprinting out of the tower, screaming to Tessa and Robert, who are camped out on the other side of the tower. “Got it!” Michael yells, waving his clue in the air. “Go, go, go!”

Jeremy glances at his watch. “I would say at best we are in third and fourth,” he says. “And that’s only if someone didn’t get the fast forward.” He looks around. “I also haven’t seen Smackie anywhere. Or Tom and Brie.”

“There they are,” Scarlett says, squinting through the rain and pointing at the city center, where four people are racing towards them. “They must have gotten the train right behind ours.”

“Hurry up,” Jeremy mumbles, his leg starting to bounce up and down. The two teams skid to a stop beside the clue box, Tom taking out Anthony entirely, the two of them falling in a tumble to the ground. After a couple of minutes of hurried conversation, Brie and Anthony leave their stuff with Tom and Sebastian, racing up the stairs of the tower.

“They’ve been up there for a while,” Scarlett says.

Jeremy reaches over, lacing his arm through hers and hooking their fingers together, squeezing lightly. “Just gotta stay calm,” he says, like he hadn’t just been freaking out a few seconds earlier. Her heart is pounding in her chest, the seconds ticking by slowly, but just having him there, sitting next to her, touching her, makes her feel like she can calm down.

“How high up do you think the observatory is?” Scarlett asks.

Jeremy looks up. “Ah…” He tilts his head to the side. “I would say maybe like four hundred feet?”

“Jesus.”

“Don’t worry,” Jeremy says. “Chris will carry Lizzie if he has to.”

“Oh, I believe it.” All she can concentrate on is Jeremy’s palm rough against her own, his hand large and warm and solid.

Even though she is worried that teams are going to pass them, that Brie and Anthony will somehow find what they are looking for before Chris and Lizzie, that Chadwick and Letitia or Hemsworth and Mark will show up, all she wants to do in that moment is sit there with Jeremy, under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower as the rain comes down, stuck in their own little bubble for a few more minutes.

Of course that is the time that Chris and Lizzie choose to burst out of the door, jumping over the guardrail and coming across the courtyard at full tilt towards Jeremy and Scarlett. “Got it?” Jeremy jumps up, Scarlett’s hand still warm from where he has been holding it. He is already putting his backpack on, grabbing Scarlett’s off the ground and handing it to her.

“Got it.” Both of them are almost completely out of breath, even Chris, who Scarlett can only assume climbs stairs for a living. “Come on!”

Chris and Lizzie lead them to the street, Lizzie using her whistle to hail a couple of taxis (“I told you it would come in handy, Scar!”), and they all pile in, their camera crews right behind them. “Arc de Triomphe, por favor,” Lizzie says, still out of breath.

“LO, that’s Spanish.”

“Oh, right.” She leans back, finally relaxed, her head dropping onto the back of the seat, her chest still heaving up and down.

“How was it up there?” Scarlett looks out the window, sees the boys’ taxi pull away from the curb right behind them.

“It was fucking chaos,” Lizzie says, closing her eyes. “MBJ and Pratt were already up there when we got there, which was no easy feat, let me tell you. It was like six hundred fucking stairs. I thought I was going to pass out. They took off pretty soon after we made it.”

“What did you have to do?”

“We begged a couple of francs off people to use the telescope. Chris took one side, I took the other, and he saw the flag on top of the Arc de Triomphe.”

“Well,” Scarlett says. “Anthony and Brie are definitely behind us, and we didn’t see anyone else.”

“Good. I didn’t kill myself climbing those stairs to get eliminated now.”

The ride from the Eiffel Tower to the Arc de Triomphe is only about ten minutes, the cab pulling up right in front of the square and dumping them out. “Come on,” Lizzie says, suddenly re-energized. “Let’s beat the boys.” Scarlett can see them getting out of their taxi on the curb, Chris practically pulling Jeremy out by his collar, so she takes off running, her backpack heavy and soaked with rain, Kat and Hayley right by their side, running with them.

Lizzie makes it to the mat first, dragging Scarlett with her. Phil is standing there with a French man wearing a jacket with ribbons on the chest and epaulets on the shoulders. “Hi!” Lizzie practically screams in his face.

“Welcome to Paris,” he says, nodding his head and saluting them.

“Thank you!”

Phil clears his throat. “Scarlett and Lizzie, you are team number four.”

“Oh, thank God.” Lizzie practically collapses against Scarlett as the boys run up behind them to wait their turn on the mat. “Four,” she says, turning around to Chris.

“So you all have a little alliance going?” Phil asks them after Jeremy and Chris have stepped onto the mat and been pronounced team number five.

“Something like that,” Jeremy says, his voice casual, and Scarlett looks down at the rain-soaked ground.

As they make their way back across the square, finally able to just walk and look at the city and enjoy where they are, the rain stops, spreading sunlight and warmth across the square. Jeremy’s words (“The city of love.”) float through Scarlett’s head, and she realizes that she is already trying to engineer a way to sleep in the same bed as him again tonight.

If Paris is the city of love, then Scarlett is in major trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7vfpk7ZKqu0ZSnYKahc96T?si=6z7RCSAvTpuT4Ou_lNp0_w


	5. all i know is i would go anywhere for you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i don't know when it will be  
> i don't know you and you don't know me  
> but every song, every line, they are yours and you are mine  
> and all i know is i would go anywhere, anywhere  
> all i know is i would go anywhere for you  
> / anywhere by the national parks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i PROMISE things are going to start happening soon. this whole chapter was planned out and then it went in a very different and pretty weird direction, so for that i am sorry and i swear that soon it's all going to start to come together.
> 
> anywhere is one of my favorite national parks songs of all time and it's one of the songs that is really driving this fic forward so go give it a listen if you get a chance!
> 
> come find me on insta @amandaalexands and tumblr @clintxbarton. i do a whole lot of yelling about nothing and it's a great time.
> 
> thank you for all of your kind words, encouragement, comments, kudos, love, reblogs, and everything in between. it means more to me than a million bucks.

Colin always made Scarlett leave.

They had dated for five months, been sleeping together for longer than that, both before and after the official beginning and end of their relationship. Even when they were together, even when he was her boyfriend, he never let her sleep over, would call her up at one or two or three in the morning, asking her to come over. And she always agreed, always showed up at his doorstep even though she knew exactly how it was going to end.

They would have sex, he would roll over and say something along the lines of “I’m really tired,” and she would be as quiet as possible while she got up, got dressed, gathered her things, and let herself out the front door. That went on for months, long enough that she accepted it as normal, even with Lizzie telling her every day that she deserves a hell of a lot more than whatever that was.

She hasn’t had sex with Jeremy, but based on the way she catches him looking at her sometimes, she figures that if she does there is no way he will kick her out of bed immediately afterwards.

However, for the first time since the race has started, they are not sleeping together. In fact, they are not even in the same room. Production has put them up in a nice hotel in the middle of Paris, just a few minutes away from the Arc de Triomphe with real beds and hot showers and even a minibar, although Scarlett can’t look at one more peanut M&M without wanting to throw up.

She takes a really long, really hot shower, the chill from being out in the rain still sitting heavy in her bones, and she comes out to find Lizzie perched in front of the minibar, rifling through it and frowning at the prices. “What is the conversion rate from euros to dollars?”

“One euro to one point one three dollars,” Scarlett says. “Or something like that.”

“How the fuck do you know that?”

She shrugs, dumping her backpack out on the bed with one hand and holding on tightly to her towel with the other. She is going to have to wash some underwear in the sink before they leave in just under twelve hours, or she will be going commando. “Read it somewhere.”

“You wanna go eat with the boys?” Lizzie asks, slamming the minifridge and standing up. “Oh, shit, both my knees just cracked.”

“Yeah.” Scarlett turns her back to Lizzie, dropping her towel and pulling clothes on. There is nothing she can do about her hair at this point, just piles it into a bun on the top of her head and hopes that it will air dry as quickly as possible. “And speaking of the boys…”

Lizzie groans. “If you’re gonna ask me about Chris-”

“Of course I am.”

“Come on.”

“Just tell me what’s going on.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” Lizzie flops down across one of the beds, looking at her watch because there is nothing else in the room that she can distract herself with at that moment. Personally, Scarlett loves not having her phone, not wondering why Colin isn’t texting her back, not checking his Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat to see whether he has posted anything. Lizzie, on the other hand, is struggling.

“Then what the hell were you doing in your room with the door locked?”

“Talking.”

“Right. You need the door locked for that.”

“Fine.” Lizzie grabs a pillow, shoving her face into it, her voice coming out muffled. “We hooked up. You happy?”

Scarlett suppresses a smirk. “Very. Can we go eat?”

“Wait, what? You don’t want to talk about this more?”

“Do you want to?”

“Nope.” Lizzie pops up, rubbing her stomach. “I’m starving. Let’s go to lunch.” But she stops at the doorway, her hand on the knob, trapping Scarlett behind her. “Before we go out there, I have to ask. What’s going on with you and Renner?”

“What?” Scarlett blushes just thinking about him, about the butterflies that appear in her stomach when she sees him, the electricity that sparks across her skin when he touches her, making the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up, goosebumps popping up on her arms when he brushes up against her. She clears her throat. “There’s nothing going on.”

Lizzie considers this, looking at Scarlett. “Okay,” she says finally. “Whatever you say, Scar.”

Scarlett follows Lizzie out into the hallway, keeping her head down in case Lizzie turns around and sees the dumb grin that she couldn’t control, the one that spreads across her face every time she thijnks about Jeremy. It is official: she is in so far over her head.

* * *

Jeremy has a hard time sleeping without Scarlett.

It is crazy, he knows. He has just met her. But so far he has spent every night with her, and even though she is in the room right next to theirs, he finds himself tossing and turning, bunching up his pillow and throwing blankets on the floor and checking his watch until Chris snaps at him to cut it out, kicky, or he’ll kill him.

There are officially nine teams left; Karen and Zoe had been eliminated after Paul and Evangeline snaked a cab out from under them at Charles de Gaulle, although at lunch before they all go back to their rooms to pass out, Hemsworth tells them that the sisters both went all the way up to the top of the Eiffel Tower because they couldn’t find the clue box underneath and ended up losing a ton of time there. The race is really on; people are fighting with other teams and with each other, and Jeremy is really glad that he isn’t in either of those positions. It is hard enough as it is.

They had been beaten to the pit stop by Paul and Evangeline, who had won the Fast Forward for that leg, Michael and Tessa, Robert and Pratt, and (by seconds) Scarlett and Lizzie. Chris whines a little bit right before he passes out about being tired of getting stuck in the middle of the pack. “We can be first and second,” he says, a weight lifting off Jeremy’s chest as he realizes that Chris has the same game plan as him and won’t leave the girls behind. “Just gotta push.”

They haven’t talked much about the girls. Jeremy knows that Chris has a thing for Lizzie, the girl he was dating back home entirely forgotten. He has worried a couple of times that Chris might accuse him of slowing down so the girls can keep up, but they have been kicking ass, beating the boys most of the time. When it comes down to a handful of teams, if they are all still in it, then they will probably have to have a conversation about striking out on their own. Until now, he is just going to try to turn off the little voice in his head that is screaming at him that this is a competition, and he is going to enjoy every single second of it.

They had gotten to the pit stop at twelve-fifteen in the afternoon, the girls just a few seconds ahead of them. When a knock comes at Jeremy’s door at midnight and he opens it to see the girls standing there, looking bright-eyed and ready to go, he really regrets not sleeping. “You look way too chipper,” he says to Scarlett as Chris closes the door of their room behind them and they head down the silent hallway.

“Just happy to see you, handsome,” she says, winking at him, and he feels his heart jump up into his throat.

The starting point is by the Arc de Triomphe, just a block away from their hotel. Thankfully, it isn’t raining anymore, the air balmy and warm. Once they make it to the clue box and their camera teams are in place, Bradley signals to Scarlett and Lizzie that they can take their clue, Cobie staring at her watch. A few seconds later, she nods to Jeremy and Chris before taking off with Bradley, the two of them practically sprinting away so that they can make it to the next pit stop before the teams.

Scarlett strips off her sweatshirt as Lizzie opens her clue. “Jesus, it’s a big one.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Shut up, Evans.” She rolls her eyes, reading the clue aloud. “Big news awaits at La Grande Roue. Hours of operation are nine a.m. to twelve-thirty a.m.” They all glance at their watches.

“Fuck,” Jeremy says, sighing heavily. “It closes in ten minutes.”

“What is it?” Chris asks, staring at their own clue, discarding the green Fast Forward packet instantly by shoving it towards Jeremy, who tucks it into the side pocket of his backpack, unopened.

“The Big Wheel,” Scarlett says, pointing. At the end of the street, moving slowly in the distance and lit up by colorful beacons of light, is a giant ferris wheel.

“You speak French?” Chris asks her.

“Just enough to be dangerous. You think we can make it there in ten minutes?”

“Gotta try.” Jeremy turns, taking off. There are no cabs around, so they run down the parkway, trying not to trip over cobblestones and darting around the few people out on the sidewalk.

They come flying up to the ferris wheel just as it stops spinning and all of the lights turn off, plunging the square into darkness. “Fuck!” Chris says, slapping the metal barrier so that it rattles loudly. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Paul and Evangeline had gotten to the pit stop around eleven because they had won the Fast Forward; they were long gone. Michael and Tessa had made it to the mat around noon, Robert and Pratt just a few steps behind, but they are nowhere to be seen at the ferris wheel, so Jeremy can only assume they had made it through by the skin of their teeth. Any lead that the four of them had on the other teams is long gone; everyone will be able to catch up to them now.

“Two minutes is gonna cost us eight damn hours,” Lizzie says. “There are how many teams behind us? Four? So we’re all gonna be on equal footing again tomorrow morning. Goddammit.” Scarlett doesn’t say anything; when Jeremy looks over at her, she is just staring at the ground, chewing on her bottom lip.

“Okay, so.” He nods briskly, trying to get everyone to pull it together. “Now what?”

Eventually they make the executive decision to sleep on the street in front of the ferris wheel, blocking the gate so that they will be the first ones in when nine o’clock comes around. As much as he wants to go back to the nice hotel with the comfortable beds, Jeremy almost doesn’t mind the cobblestones poking into his back as long as it is Scarlett next to him.

They all sit down, rummaging in their bags for food or entertainment. Their camera crew sits down with them, zooming in on Scarlett’s face. She looks tired, the skin under her eyes brushed with purple, but even so Jeremy is struck at how effortlessly beautiful she is.

“The stress is unbelievable,” she says to the camera, the ferris wheel stretching up behind her, dark and still. “We’re in a foreign country. We have no idea where we’re going. We don’t know where we’re are. We’re on a plane one day and jumping off a cliff the next.” She slides a hand over towards Jeremy out of frame of the camera, resting it lightly on his leg, and he tries not to have a heart attack.

“How are things with you and Lizzie?” Hayley asks.

“We bicker but she’s my best friend. We bicker about everything back home. She’s more of a take charge, fly by the seat of her pants type of girl, so I think I do a good job of reining that in a little bit and trying to get us to think more about what we’re doing. And she is a really good motivator. We’ve pulled together really well.”

They break out their portable sleeping bags for the first time, padding the ground with backpacks and coats and sweaters, grateful that at least it is warm, and they stretch out to try to get some sleep, Scarlett and Lizzie in the middle, Chris on one side and Jeremy on the other, bracketing them in. He is so tired, would have given anything to go back to sleep in his comfortable bed just a half an hour earlier, but now that he is here, Scarlett’s back warm against his front, one arm draped across her casually, he feels like his heart is beating too fast for him to ever be able to fall asleep.

“We have no food. We have no water.” Chris is laying on his back, looking up at the sky. There is a pause as he thinks about what he is going to say next. “We’re all set.” Jeremy snorts.

He doesn’t manage to fall asleep, but the girls do, breathing softly. Jeremy tries to stop himself from watching Scarlett as she sleeps, because that crosses over into a level of creepy that he can’t justify to himself, but she looks so peaceful, so at ease, and he knows that he could do this every night for the rest of his life.

A couple of hours later, the last teams show up in quick succession, the girls waking up as they all stroll up: Anthony and Sebastian, Tom and Brie, Chadwick and Letitia, and Hemsworth and Mark. “Well, well, well,” Brie says as they sit down, starting to make beds for themselves. “Looks like a party.”

And it is, everyone laughing and throwing things at each other and traded good-natured insults. Everyone is happy. Everyone seems relaxed. And then it starts to rain.

The first drop hits Jeremy right in the eye, the second running cold down the back of his shirt, and then the sky opens up, drenching them completely. There are shrieks and scuffles, a flurry of movement as people try to cover up with whatever they have available. Chris zips Lizzie completely into her sleeping bag, leaving a tiny sliver open at the top to let air in. Scarlett scoots up against the fence, digging in her bag for something to put over her head. None of it works; after a few seconds, they are all completely drenched.

The rest of the night could have been miserable. The rain seems practically icy after the warmth of the night; people are instantly cranky, bickering at their teammates; the weight of the race is sitting heavy on their shoulders, making them all fully aware that it will be a six-team sprint to the finish before their next leg is up. But, as it always seems to be, Jeremy’s saving grace is Scarlett.

It has been raining for about an hour when he looks over at her to see her shivering, even in her sleeping bag with three sweatshirts and a hat on. “Hey,” he says, nudging her with his arm. They are still sitting up against the fence, Lizzie and Chris zipped up fully into their sleeping bags in front of them, not moving. “You okay?”

“I’m…” She can barely speak, her muscles tensed to keep her teeth from chattering. “So fucking cold.”

“Ah.” He nods. “You’re a freeze baby.”

She laughs, rolling her eyes at him. “Yeah.” She wraps her sleeping bag tighter around herself, stretching a kink out of her neck. “You can say that again.”

Jeremy stands up, hopping out of his sleeping bag. “Here.” He extends his hand to her, pulling her up. “I have an idea.” She doesn’t protest, just lets him take her sleeping bag from her, spreading it out on the ground and putting his on top of it. “Get in.”

“Jeremy, I can’t take your sleeping bag, come on-”

“It’s fine,” he says. “I’m gonna get in there with you.”

She looks at him for a few seconds, the rain running down her face, but then she sits down, pulling her tennis shoes off and shoving them into her backpack to try to keep them dry, slipping down into his sleeping bag and looking up at him expectantly.

This had been his idea, obviously, but he realizes now the position that he has put himself in. He can barely be around her in a normal setting without losing his breath; this is going to be ten times worse. But she is there waiting, still shivering, so he kicks his shoes off too, trying to slide in next to her without elbowing her in the face.

It is instantly warm, his body throwing heat towards hers, and under the cover of the sleeping bag and the rain and the night, she slips her hands around his back, underneath his shirt, encircling him with her arms, and she almost instantly falls asleep.

* * *

“Easy walk or tough climb. Oh, fuck me. Okay. For tough climb, you must climb up two hundred and ninety-seven steps to ring Quasimodo’s bell. For easy walk, you must find the statute of a cat sitting next to Foucault’s Pendulum. Hours of operation for both locations are ten a.m. to five-thirty p.m.”

“We have to do tough climb. It’s Notre Dame.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You didn’t just sprint to the top of the Eiffel Tower.”

“You’re a fucking firefighter.”

“So are you!”

“There’s gotta be a catch with the cat statue thing. It can’t be that easy. Renner is right. We have to do Notre Dame.”

“Fine.” Chris sighs. “But if I collapse halfway up, all you fuckers are carrying me.”

“Deal. Let’s fucking go.”

The morning has come quickly, everything they own soaking wet, but Scarlett is warm and dry in her little cocoon with Jeremy, hidden from the world. She wants to stay there forever, wakes up when the sun starts peeking over the horizon to see him fast asleep, breathing evenly. She glances behind her at Chris and Lizzie, both of whom are still sealed shut in their sleeping bags, and she figures she better extricate herself before anyone sees.

Before long everyone is up, even the people who haven’t managed to get any sleep, teams up and moving around, packing their stuff, wringing out their shirts, and standing up, bones cracking. Once it gets closer to nine o’clock, the air starts to feel electric. By five to, everyone is standing up, forming a line in the order that they had gotten to the ferris wheel, Scarlett and Lizzie right at the front.

They grab two clues, darting out of the way, and they open them to see that it is a Detour, making the quick decision to go to Notre Dame and not even bother trying to figure out where the hell Foucault’s Pendulum is. It is only a taxi ride along the Seine to Notre Dame, and all six of the teams are neck and neck, cars speeding around each other as everyone urges their drivers to go faster. Scarlett wonders if Chris was talking about Maxwell again.

Their car spits them out in front of the cathedral, rising high above them, stone arches and sharp spires and stained glass windows catching the light. It is beautiful, but as always they don’t have any time to look at it. The ground is slick with rain, Scarlett slipping slightly as she makes her way toward the pack. Everyone knows not to run on the grounds of the monument, but they are all walking as quickly as possible, Tom and Brie at the head of the pack.

It is almost nine-thirty by the time that they have all congregated at the gate, people shucking off their jackets and shoving them into their backpacks now that the sun is starting to come out and they are about to sprint to the top of another giant building. “I just did this,” Lizzie is whining as Jeremy and Chris come up to them. “My legs hurt.”

“Sorry, LO,” Scarlett says, shrugging. “I don’t know what to tell you.” Brie and Anthony are voicing the same sentiments as Lizzie, Chris chiming in when he hears what they are talking about. Chadwick and Hemsworth had also gone to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and it is easy to see that the people who had climbed those stairs are already hurting. It is going to be a rough Detour, that is for sure.

As the minutes inch towards ten o’clock, everyone starts to get more antsy, tying their hair up and lacing their shoes tight, trying to see if they can drop any extra weight from their backpacks. Lizzie is sitting down, insisting that she needs to conserve as much energy as possible. “Aren’t you glad I didn’t let you bring all those extra tubes of toothpaste? They really would have weighed you down.”

Scarlett damn near strangles her.

At a minute to ten, they are all lined up in front of the cathedral in the order they got there, Tom and Brie, then the boys, Scarlett, and Lizzie, and the last three teams behind them. Everyone is very aware of the fact that it is going to be one of them who is eliminated, the air crackling with nervous energy. At ten o’clock they all make their way into the cathedral, facing down the spiraling stone stairs disappearing far above their heads.

Scarlett is counting the stairs as they go, already breathing hard by the time they hit thirty. She keeps her eyes on Jeremy’s back right in front of her. Tom and Brie have a massive lead on them, the two of them more in shape than the fucking firefighters of the group, and Chris is at the head of a long procession, the rest of the teams and camera crews spread out behind them.

“This sucks,” Chris says, his voice floating down the narrow stone tube towards Scarlett. “This fucking sucks.”

Scarlett has no idea how Kat is doing this climb with that heavy camera; she is having a hard enough time, even though they had all dumped their backpacks at the bottom of the stairs, a security guard promising to watch them. Lizzie keeps pausing to put her hands on her knees, taking a breath for a second or two before pushing ahead again to get up next to Chris. Eventually the stairwell quiets, people unable to speak, the air filled with the sounds of people panting and an occasional swear word.

Two hundred and ninety-seven steps later, they are at the top of the South Tower, everyone splitting off into different directions to try to find the bell. “Oh, fuck,” Scarlett hears Anthony groan. “More stairs.”

The top of the cathedral is like a maze, small passages and hidden doorways and narrow ledges, the whole of Paris spread out beneath them. Scarlett follows the sound of Anthony’s voice, ducking around corners and hoping Lizzie is right behind her because she doesn’t have time to stop and wait for her.

“Why do we have to run?” she hears Sebastian say. “It’s too narrow for anyone to pass us.”

They catch up to Anthony and Sebastian at the entrance to the belfry, another staircase in front of them, this one open and made of iron, air coming in through the slats of the tower. “What are you doing, Scar?” Anthony shrieks at her as they race up the stairs behind them.

“Drafting,” Scarlett says. “Move faster or get out of my way.” Behind her, Lizzie snorts. After a hundred and fifty more stairs, Anthony and Sebastian ring the bell, grabbing a clue and sprinting back down, not even bothering to read it until they make it out of the small, cramped space. People are stacking up behind them, Jeremy and Chris caught behind Tom and Brie.

“Go ahead, LO,” Scarlett says. “You ring it.”

Lizzie does triumphantly as Scarlett grabs a clue. “Meet you down there,” she mutters to Jeremy as they sprint back down the stairs, trying desperately not to slip and fall.

Going back down is a whole lot easier than going up, and they tumble out the base of the stairs next to their backpacks, grabbing them out of the pile and speedwalking outside, opening the clue. “Find the man in a blue suit standing across from the Hotel de Ville,” Scarlett reads.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Should we wait for the boys?”

Lizzie nods firmly. “They would for us.”

Tom and Brie come flying out of the stairwell, grabbing their backpacks at a full sprint. Jeremy and Chris are right on their heels. “We read it on our way down.” Chris is clutching a crumpled up clue in his hand. “Let’s rock.”

They cross the Seine, running across the bridge. Anthony, Sebastian, Tom, and Brie are right in front of them, and they know that Chadwick, Letitia, Hemsworth, and Mark are right on their tails. The Hotel de Ville is a long, ornate building on the other side of the river, stretching wide and tall, and it is visible from the cathedral so at least they don’t have far to go.

They must be a sight, the twelve teammates and twelve crew members sprinting through traffic and darting around pedestrians, practically running each other over at red lights and barely stopping long enough to look both ways for cars. They manage to edge ahead of Tom and Brie, who are starting to slow down (it is about time, Scarlett thinks. Those two seem superhuman.), and they see the man standing next to a tree and an open hole in the ground, fenced off with an orange barrier.

Uh oh.

There are bags of clothes spread out on the ground, and a bad feeling comes over Scarlett. The man in the blue suit (not a nice suit, like Scarlett has been thinking, but more of a jumpsuit) hands them a clue, and they rip it open. Scarlett lets Lizzie read it, looking around to see if the lawyers, Paul and Evangeline, or Michael and Tessa are anywhere in sight.

“Look, look!” Jeremy says to Chris next to them. “We ain’t out of it yet, brother.” Scarlett looks where he is pointing to see Michael and Tessa; it looks like they are heatedly discussing something, a clue in Michael’s hand.

“Roadblock,” Lizzie says, pulling Scarlett’s attention back towards her.

“Hit me.”

“This task requires a strong stomach and no fear of the dark.” Lizzie looks up. “Well, that’s you. You know I throw up at the drop of a hat.” Scarlett has a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she watches Tessa disappear around the corner, dressed head to toe in a shiny white suit, her head completely covered by some sort of elaborate helmet.

“Fine. But then you can’t say that you ran up the Eiffel Tower every day.”

“Deal.” Lizzie rips open the second envelope. “Your task is simple,” she reads. “Walk to a public square called the Place du Châtelet. It is only two blocks away. However…” Lizzie makes a face. “Uh oh. To get there, one team member must find their way underground through the Paris sewers, a labyrinth of tunnels filled with steaming, raw sewage.” She looks up. “Scar, you know that means poop.”

“I know it’s poop,” Scarlett snaps. She can hear Tom and Brie having the same argument next to them. It sounds like Brie, once again, has volunteered. “Let’s just get on with it.”

She turns around, hoping that Jeremy is going to be going with her, but the boys have disappeared around the corner. Lizzie is already grabbing Scarlett’s backpack from her, and around the corner is chaos. People are stripping off jackets, sweaters, and boots, yelling things at their teammates and changing quickly into the white suits waiting for them. “Scar!” Chris yells. “C’mere!”

She makes her way around the mass of people. Jeremy is holding Chris’s stuff, and her heart sinks just a little bit at the thought of being away from him even for a couple of blocks, but maybe it is a good thing; shoving their way through a sewer isn’t exactly the most romantic thing she can think of. “You up?” she asks Chris lamely; it is clear from the fact that he is undressing on a Paris street that he will be the one to go underground.

“I’m fucking ready,” he says, sitting down to pull rubber boots on. Lizzie drops their backpacks, reaching out to grab Scarlett’s shoes. “Stay with me, okay? I’ll get us through.”

“Don’t lose her,” Lizzie warns. “I’ll kill you.”

“It’s the first time in a while that we have all been this close as a group, I think,” Jeremy is saying to his camera man. “We are back to back to back. People are pushing to get in line…” He gestures behind him, Tessa disappearing into a manhole in the ground, Anthony hot on her heels. He hands Chris his helmet, making sure it is strapped on as Lizzie grabs a map and a flashlight for Scarlett. She takes them clumsily, her hands already sweating in the rubber gloves.

“See you on the other side, babe,” Lizzie says, picking up Scarlett’s backpack as she hoists her own onto her back.

Chris is bouncing up and down. “Come on, Scar,” he says. “Time to get dirty.” She is following him over to the ladder when Jeremy grabs her arm.

“You good?”

She can barely speak; he is so close to her face, his eyes light and looking right through her. She swallows as he tucks a piece of hair back under her helmet, his hand brushing her face. “Yeah,” she manages. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Scar!”

“Keep your pants on, Evans.”

Jeremy squeezes her hand once. “Be careful.”

“You too.”

Scarlett follows Chris down into the sewer. She knows it is going to be dark and disgusting, but she doesn’t realize how dark and disgusting until they are down there, knee deep in water and who knows what else, their head lamps illuminating a few feet in front of them. “Chris,” she says, trying and failing miserably to keep her voice from shaking. “If I see a rat, I may have a small panic attack.”

Chris reaches back for her, pausing mid step, water sloshing around them. “Here,” he says, holding out his hand, and she grabs onto it. He squeezes it tightly. “I’ve got you.”

The tunnel is barely wide enough for the two of them to walk next to each other, pipes running alongside their heads, the ground slippery beneath their feet. There are times when the passageway gets too narrow, and Chris pushes Scarlett ahead of him, gripping her tightly around the waist to keep her from falling.

“No fear,” Chris keeps saying. “You’re doing great, babe.”

Kat and Dave are ahead of them, walking backwards slowly to stay in front of them. Scarlett will forever be impressed at the fact that neither of them seemed even a little fussed about what they are doing. She had talked to Kat for a while the night before, found out that she had been a Survivor cameraman and figured that nothing The Amazing Race could throw at her would be as bad as spending thirty-one days in an incredibly rainy, bug-ridden, dangerous Panama forest.

It is slow going; voices echo up and down the tunnel, Brie and Anthony trying desperately to stay ahead of each other. It sounds like they are trading places back and forth, Anthony yelling “Is Easter your favorite holiday? Because you’re about to eat some chocolate!” Brie’s laugh floats back towards them, and Scarlett knows that they can’t be too far behind the frontrunners.

“Dead end,” Chris says as they come up to a yellow and red rope hanging across the tunnel, turning them back. “Fuck.” They pause for a few seconds, squinting at the map to try to figure out where they are.

“I think we have to go left.”

The smell is overwhelming, and by the time they spot the stairs climbing up the wall, Scarlett thinks she might actually pass out. Chris doesn’t seem like he is in any better shape, muttering “Renner is going to pay for this” under his breath repeatedly.

They are so close to making it, see the clue box at the bottom of the stairs, illuminated by the faint light filtering in from the exit, when Chris falls, taking Scarlett down with him. “Shit,” he shouts. “Shit, shit, shit!”

“Literally,” Scarlett says, rolling over and helping him up, trying desperately to think about anything other than the fact that they are rolling around in a sewer.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

They each grab a clue, taking the stairs two at a time, leaving Kat and Dave behind them in their rush to get out into the clean air. “Land!” Chris yells. “I don’t even care that there’s more stairs.”

They come out in the middle of the square, throwing their clues on the ground and helping each other undress as quickly as they can. “Where are they?” Chris asks breathlessly.

Scarlett is whipping around, trying to see through the trees and people and cars. “There!” She points. Jeremy and Lizzie are on the other side of the street, waiting for the light to turn green so they can go. “There they are!”

“How did we beat them here?”

“I don’t know.” Scarlett rips open the clue. “Check in to the pit stop at the top of the castle in Les Baux.” She looks up at Chris. “Race to the finish. You ready?”

“Ready!”

Jeremy and Lizzie come flying up to them. A few feet down, Anthony, Brie, and Tessa are all pulling off their suits and helmets and boots, their teammates standing by impatiently. “You made it!” Lizzie yells. “Was it horrible?”

“Horrible.” Scarlett nods. “I’ll tell you about it on the way.”

“Where are we going?”

“No idea.” Scarlett shoves the clue at her. “But it’s gonna be a nine way race to the mat.” She stops someone passing them. “Excuse me,” she says in French, trying to pick her way through the words as best she can. “Do you know where this is?” The guy nods, saying a lot of things really quickly that she doesn’t understand, but she is able to recognize “the South of France.”

“South of France!” she says. “We gotta get to the train station.”

It isn’t until they are safe on the train, sitting across from each other, Michael and Tessa the only other team in sight, that they can relax. Lizzie falls asleep almost instantly, her legs slung across Chris’s lap as he stares out the window. Scarlett knows she should sleep too, but Jeremy is right next to her and she can barely focus on breathing, much less sleeping.

“I think I’ll be doing the Roadblocks for the rest of the race,” he says. “I owe Chris big for that one.”

Her breath catches in her throat as his hand twitches on his leg, and she wants to grab it. She has slept with him a few times, seen him half naked, felt the muscles in his back, ropy underneath her fingers, but she still feels like she has to keep some distance between them. With Colin, she was never sure about what to do, what she wanted. Here, she is more than sure of how she feels, but what is going on in Jeremy’s head is a different story entirely.

“This was the most freaking stressful leg of this whole race so far,” she says, trying to fill the air between them with words. She lays her head back against the seat, letting out a huff of air. “You think anyone else made the train?”

“You wanna go look?”

She looks at Chris and Lizzie. “Go ahead,” Chris says, keeping stock still so that he won’t dislodge Lizzie’s head from his shoulder. “I’ll stay here.”

Jeremy stands up, and they make their way down the aisle of the train as it rocks gently. At one point, it goes around a curve, sending Scarlett sideways, and Jeremy grabs her around the waist quickly, pulling her back against him so that she won’t fall. “I… uh…” She looks back at him as he tries to push the words out, releasing her quickly. “Sorry.”

She wants to tell him that it is okay, that it is more than okay, but then they see Sebastian and Anthony in the next car, Brie and Tom across from them. Chadwick and Letitia are sleeping sideways across some seats, and Hemsworth and Mark are playing cards. “Fuck,” Jeremy says, pulling back. “That’s damn near everybody.”

They relay that information to Chris and Lizzie, who wakes up when they get back to their seats, Michael and Tessa leaning over. “So it’s everyone?” Tessa asks.

“Just about,” Jeremy says. “Didn’t see the lawyers or Paul and Evangeline, but everyone else.”

By the time they sit back down, the moment between Jeremy and Scarlett is gone.

They talk on the train once Michael and Tessa fall asleep, discussing strategy and game plan and alliances. “If you guys can outrun us, then you should outrun us,” Lizzie says firmly. “We can keep up, and if we can’t then we sure as hell aren’t gonna bring you down.”

“We’re not going to just leave you behind.”

“We can beat some of these teams,” Scarlett says. “If it comes down to a footrace, we aren’t gonna be last, I guarantee it.”

“So what?” Jeremy asks her, narrowing his eyes. “You want us to just go?”

“Yes.” She looks at Lizzie who nods in confirmation. “We’ll be right behind you.”

It takes some convincing, but they finally get the guys to agree that once they hit the platform, it is a free for all. As far as they know, whoever makes it to the castle first will be team number one, and Scarlett will be damned if she lets anyone hold back for her.

The village is beautiful, the sea shining behind the cliffs and the old castle standing proudly on top of the hill. The streets are paved with cobblestones, the houses small and charming, the streets winding and narrow. It is incredible. But all they see when the train pulls into the tiny station, barely slowing down long enough for them to get out, is how far they are about to have to run, how steep the hill is, and how many teams are bunched together.

“Go, go, go!” Jeremy yells as they take a flying leap off the train.

It feels like miles and miles to the top of the hill. Jeremy and Chris disappear around a corner almost immediately, Sebastian and Anthony close behind them. Scarlett’s goal is just to stay ahead of someone, anyone. They are all tired; they have all climbed stairs and trekked through sewers and slept in the rain. Their bodies are starting to break down, and if they can just hold the pain back a little bit longer, they will be okay.

They start to fade somewhere around the middle, Michael and Tessa passing them. They can see the yellow and white flag waving at the top of the hill, smaller ones dotting their route as they make their way through the village. They can hear the whoops and cheers of the boys at the top, know that Jeremy and Chris have made it, Sebastian and Anthony somewhere up there too, although she doesn’t know if they beat the boys to the mat or not. Hemsworth and Mark sprint past them soon after, Tom and Brie right behind them.

“Come on,” Lizzie is saying, but she can barely even get the words out. “We’ve gotta fucking push.” Scarlett’s legs are on fire, her shin splints so bad she is practically falling down, but Chadwick and Letitia are close behind them, so close that she doesn’t even dare to turn around for fear that those couple of seconds will be all it takes to drop them into last place.

Suddenly the mat comes into view. Everyone is there, Tom and Brie standing in front of Phil. Jeremy shades his eyes when he saw them, squinting. “Go!” he screams. “They’re right behind you, go!”

The thought of losing Jeremy crosses through Scarlett’s mind, the only thing pushing her forward at this point, that and pure fucking adrenaline. Somehow they stay in front, practically collapsing onto the mat. “Scarlett and Lizzie,” Phil says, and she holds her breath even though she knows they aren’t last, even though she knows she will have at least one more night with Jeremy. “You are team number seven.”

Lizzie lets out a deep breath, turning around and throwing herself into Chris’s arms. Scarlett practically drags herself off the mat, collapsing onto the grass, not enough energy to even appreciate the sea stretching out for what seems like miles and glittering where the sun hits it. She doesn’t get a chance to sit for even a moment before Jeremy is dragging her up, hugging her tightly.

“Wait,” she says. “I smell like shit. I fell in garbage earlier and-”

“I don’t care,” he says, his voice muffled against her neck and the scruff on his face tickling her skin. “I don’t fucking care.”

“It’s okay,” she says, feeling herself relax into him. She winds her arms around his neck, feels his heart beat against hers. “We made it. It’s okay.”

He pulls back, staring at her intently, and all the words that have been building up, all the thoughts that she has been pushing to the back of her brain, all the things she wants to say threatening to come spilling out of her mouth. “I’m not leaving you again,” he says. “Understand?”

A smile creeps over her face. “You got it, Renner.” He pulls her back towards him, and she closes her eyes, letting the sun wash over them. “You got it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7vfpk7ZKqu0ZSnYKahc96T?si=zKneI_3ISbOzdj3qdNmRNQ


	6. in the lights of the city everything moves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> maybe i'm a runaway and that's why i'm here  
> still spinning like a hurricane, just trying to see it clear  
> but i feel that sometimes everything's a blur  
> in the lights of the city everything moves, everything moves  
> everything stops when i'm with you  
> / lights in the city by the national parks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things are happening:  
> 1\. jeremy renner released new music because he hates me and wants me to die. i have been listening to main attraction on repeat for about thirty-six hours now and it is incredible. also i refuse to believe he is saying "oh sky won't you give me a sign" in sign because it sounds a hell of a lot like oh scar.  
> 2\. i went back and changed everything into third person present. i have written in present tense exactly once in my life, and i have never written in third present, but i was reading nail by nail for inspiration and then i just started writing in third present. then i realized that it was a now or never situation in which maybe i should try it for this fic, and i decided to go back and rewrite everything. about fifteen thousand words in, i realized that was a horrible decision but here we are. if there are any glaring mistakes please please please let me know because i started to fall into insanity whilst doing it. big shout out to emily who didn't even try to stop me.  
> 3\. as you will see, this chapter completely got away from me and i lost my head a little bit. if you are still here reading, you deserve a medal and you have all of my love and affection!
> 
> i am on instagram @amandaalexands and tumblr @clintxbarton

If there was one place Scarlett could choose to come clean with Jeremy about how she is feeling, it would definitely be at a castle on top of a cliff in the South of France. She would not have been able to maneuver the location any better if she had tried.

The only thing she has to figure out now is how the hell to do it.

Once they get past the fear of being eliminated, it is quick work to do the math and realize that they were not actually racing Chadwick and Letitia for last place. Paul and Evangeline are still missing, and eventually everyone realizes that they haven’t seen them all day. They come rolling in when it is dark, see everyone waiting, and their faces fall when Phil tells them that they are the last team and have been eliminated.

“We went to the wrong pendulum,” Evangeline says. “There were two and we just chose the wrong one. Lost hours there.”

The mood is somber for a little while, and Scarlett knows that Lizzie is trying her absolute hardest not to bust out an “I told you so” to Chris; she had been the one saying over and over that there was no way the pendulum challenge was that easy. Paul and Evangeline say their good-byes, are sent to pack up their things and go wherever the eliminated teams are being sequestered. Scarlett can only hope that she never finds out where that is.

Eventually the teams start to stand up, dust themselves off, and make their way down the hill to the hotel, most everyone limping or wincing or rubbing their backs. Scarlett is just getting up when Jeremy grabs her arm. “Wait,” he says. “Just for a second.”

Her heart jumps into her throat. “What’s up?”

He waits until Michael and Tessa disappear over the crest of the hill before spinning her around and pointing at the water. “Look.”

So she does, takes a second to drink in where they are and who she is with and what they have been through to get here. She looks at the water hitting the rocks and breaking white far beneath them, the moon overhead, big and bright and full and shining down on them. She feels Jeremy’s hands on her shoulders, his breath so close to her neck, their whole lives ahead of them.

The feeling she had when she thought she was about to be eliminated, about to be separated from Jeremy, is still fresh in her brain. It was a terrifying combination of fear and regret and loss that she doesn’t want to ever feel again. So she knows: it is now or never.

Scarlett turns towards Jeremy, who is not in fact looking at the moon or the stars or the water, but instead right at her, and she slips her hands around the back of his neck, trying to hold herself steady. She doesn’t know what to say, has too many words and somehow not enough at the same time, so instead of trying to stammer something out, she kisses him.

It feels like the past week has been a blur, like they have been moving so fast that they don’t have time to stop and even catch a breath. But now with Jeremy’s arms tight around her and the feeling of his lips against her own, it feels like everything is standing still.

An hour later, Scarlett tries to slip into their room as quietly as possible. Everything that has just happened feels like a dream; she knows that her hair was a mess and her pupils are blown and her mouth is swollen from the scruff on Jeremy’s face. Lizzie is not going to believe that the two of them haven’t had sex, even though they haven’t, so her only hope is that her best friend is fast asleep.

She isn’t.

“Where have you been?” Lizzie demands as soon as she shuts the door behind herself, but there is a gleam in her eye and a twitch to her lips that tells Scarlett she already knows the answer.

“I was, uh…” Scarlett shrugs. “With Jeremy.”

“Obviously.” Lizzie points. “You have a hickey on your neck.”

Scarlett slaps a hand over the spot, still able to feel Jeremy’s mouth working on the sensitive skin, knows she bruises like a peach. “So what?” She knows she sounds accusatory. “You did it first.”

“Hey!” Lizzie snorts. “You’re not supposed to do anything I would do.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a mess.” She rolls her eyes. “Clearly.”

“Well.” Scarlett flops down onto her stomach on the bed, grateful for a soft mattress and a pillow and a blanket, ready to fall fast asleep and figure out what the hell to do with her life in the morning. “It’s a little too late for that.”

“Did you get some?”

Scarlett rolls over, looking at Lizzie across the small space between their beds. She doesn’t say anything, just shakes her head.

“What? Why the hell not?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m your best friend. Tell me exactly what happened or I’ll scream.”

“Fine.” Scarlett sits up, knowing that there isn’t a chance in hell that Lizzie is going to drop this until she explains. “Well, you know I like him.” That isn’t a secret to Lizzie, even if Scarlett has never said the words out loud. Anyone would be able to see how she looks at Jeremy. “And after we almost got eliminated, I don’t know… I just thought that I had to say something now in case I lost the chance before I could even take it.”

“Makes sense.”

“Right, so… I kissed him.” Lizzie’s mouth twitches again, and Scarlett knows that she is biting back a smile.

“And?”

“It was…” She tries to keep her facial expression as neutral as she can, but once she thinks about how lightly Jeremy touched her, how he looked at her like she was made of gold, how warm he felt against her and how it felt like every muscle in her body was reaching out towards him as he kissed her, it is impossible. “It was perfect. It was exactly what I wanted.”

“But?” Lizzie knows her too well.

“But…” Scarlett sighs. “Colin.”

“Ew!” Lizzie throws a pillow at her, and she manages to roll out of the way just in time. “What the fuck about Colin? What happened to not even saying his dumbfuck name?”

“It’s not about Colin.”

“You were the one who brought him up!”

“I know. I mean…” Scarlett sighs again, heavier this time. She doesn’t know how to explain the hesitation that is sitting deep in her bones, holding her back even when she knows she wants Jeremy more than anything. Maybe even more than a million dollars. It is a dangerous game she is playing with herself, the race making it even more complicated than it should be. “You know I’ve been hurt before. I’m just now getting over it. I can’t… I can’t do that again. I can’t move too fast. I have to be careful.”

Lizzie gets up, crossing the few feet to Scarlett’s bed, and she sits down next to her. “Listen,” she says, her face serious. “I’ve been telling you for a long time that you deserve better. Jeremy is better. Jeremy is what you deserve.”

Scarlett falls asleep with Lizzie’s words in her head, the taste of Jeremy in her mouth, and absolutely no idea what to do.

* * *

  
It is unexpected, to say the least.

The second Jeremy takes off after Chris up that hill, he regrets leaving the girls behind. That regret only sinks deeper into the pit of his stomach, settling there once they reach the mat and wait breathlessly for the others to appear. With every team that comes huffing and puffing over the crest of the hill, the feeling that he might throw up grows even stronger. Anthony and Sebastian are just seconds behind them, a footrace that ends with Jeremy and Chris throwing themselves onto the mat just a few feet before the frat brothers. Hemsworth and Mark aren’t far behind, followed closely by Tom and Brie. A couple of minutes later, Michael and Tessa appear, Michael practically dragging her up the hill.

It doesn’t take much to figure out that it is down to Scarlett, Lizzie, Chadwick, and Letitia, and as soon as he sees the four of them come sprinting neck and neck up the hill, he starts screaming, the yells of everyone else urging them on practically drowning him out. He doesn’t remember much of what happens, feels like he might have actually blacked out, but he does know that somehow Scarlett and Lizzie make it there first, just a few footsteps ahead.

Chadwick and Letitia look so defeated, but Jeremy isn’t fazed even a little bit, can’t contain his excitement at the fact that the girls aren’t going home. He barely even hears Phil pronounce Chadwick and Letitia team number eight, not the last team, not the ones who are going to be eliminated. Instead, he pulls Scarlett up from the grass where she has collapsed, breathing hard, and hugs her tightly, promising her that he won’t let that happen again.

If there is one thing Jeremy is absolutely sure about, it is that he isn’t going to let another moment pass by before he tells this beautiful girl that he has feelings far bigger than anything he can express. So when everyone has scattered to the chateau, he pulls Scarlett back. He is just getting ready to say something, is looking at her and trying to pluck up the courage, when she kisses him.

It is sudden and surprising and insistent, and it is everything that he has been thinking about for the past few days, ever since he bumped into her in the lobby of the hotel. Her hands are warm on the back of his neck, pulling him closer to her, and he feels goosebumps pop up underneath her fingers when she draws back slightly, biting his bottom lip.

“Hey,” she says, smiling up at him, and he feels like he can’t breathe.

He clears his throat. “Hey,” he says back, knows that the roughness in his voice is betraying him completely. “What was that for?”

She tilts her head to the side, her hair falling down her back and tickling the back of his hand where it is spread over her spine. “I just…” She swallows. “We don’t know what’s gonna happen when we leave here tomorrow, you know?”

There is so much more he wants to say, but for right now this is enough. “Yeah.” He leans forward, brushing her lips with his again. “I know.”

She is the one to stop things, pulls back suddenly, her eyes glassy and her cheeks flushed. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” She nods quickly. “I mean, yes. More than okay. I just…” He wants to chase after her, wants to kiss her again, wants to feel her move against him, wants to take her to bed and pretend that they have all the time in the world instead of just a couple of hours. But then she speaks again. “I just think we should go slow.”

That is the opposite of what Jeremy wants, but the truth is that all he wants is Scarlett, and he will meet her wherever she is. So he agrees quickly. “Of course. Whatever you want.” He takes her face in his hands, cupping her cheeks and looking at her for a few seconds before he kisses her one last time, forcing himself to tear away. “Sleep tight, sweetheart.”

When he gets back to their room, Chris is already passed out, and Jeremy considers waking him up so that he might be able to get some perspective on what the hell is going on, but he also wants to make it to the next leg and not risk getting murdered. So he just lays down, thinks of Scarlett, and tries to go to sleep.

He is worried that things will feel awkward, that when he sees Scarlett again there will be a weird vibe between them. But when they meet Jeremy and Chris at the bottom of the hill, two taxis waiting just like they had agreed on before they separated a few hours before, everything feels the same. She barely gives him any indication that she had stood on a cliff, kissing the breath out of his lungs the day before, that she had been whispering his name in his ear, sending shivers down his spine as he trailed his lips down her neck and felt her under his hands.

The lawyers had won the Fast Forward, hitting the mat at three fifty-three in the afternoon. Twelve hours later, they are gone, the rest of the teams not too far behind. Hopefully, there will be a chance in this leg for everyone to get spread out, Jeremy thinks; right now they are all bunched up together and it makes things a thousand times more stressful in his opinion.

Jeremy and Chris are next up, scheduled to leave at four eleven in the morning. They had talked to Scarlett and Lizzie briefly the day before while they were still on the train, agreeing that they would call a couple of cabs, making sure that they were there to meet them when it was time to head out. They should already be waiting at the bottom of the hill. Jeremy and Chris don’t read the clue out loud right away, Anthony and Sebastian just thirty seconds behind them, taking it quietly before making their way down the hill as quickly as they can without falling.

“Okay,” Chris says softly as they near the bottom. “It says…” He brings it closer to his face, squinting to make it out in the dim light of the moon. “You’ve seen the Arc de Triomphe in France; now find the smaller version in the country represented by this flag. When you get there, find this man and greet him by saying ‘As Salaami’ to receive your next clue. What? What fucking country? God, why do they always do this to us?” Chris pulls some more things out of the envelope, shoving them at Jeremy, who looks at them closely. There is a tiny red cloth flag, a white circle with a crescent moon and a star outlined in the center, and a picture of a man wearing a turban. “You must travel by water from Marseilles. Boats are few and far between.”

“That’s all it says?”

“Of fucking course that’s all it says. They’re trying to kill us.”

There are two taxis waiting at the bottom of the hill, the lawyers already gone, and Jeremy knows that it is possible that they are screwing themselves by waiting for the girls. With everyone so close together, there is no room for mistakes; however the tightness in his chest loosens a little when he realizes that no one else has called for a taxi.

“Those yours?” Anthony asks. He is not a morning person, that much is clear.

“Yeah,” Chris says, rubbing his forehead. “Ours and the girls.”

They have the same conversation with Hemsworth and Mark, Tom and Brie, and Michael and Tessa when they come down the hill and see the taxis, all of them disappearing to try to find a phone and figure out what the hell to do.

The girls make it down to them around four-thirty, and they exchange bleary hugs, not a lot of words passing between them, although Scarlett does linger with her arms around Jeremy’s neck before he deposits her in her cab and they leave for the Port of Marseilles.

The lawyers are the only ones there when they got there, the entire building shut down for the night. “You figure out where we’re going?” Pratt asks as soon as they tumble out onto the curb.

“Not yet. You?”

“No. We just got here.”

“Alright,” Scarlett says, taking charge and looking around. “I’ve got this one, boys.”

She disappears into the station, coming back just a few minutes later. “You’ll never believe this, but I just spoke to a girl whose flag it is.”

“You did not.”

“Sure did.” She pulls the flag out of her pocket, spreading it flat on her hand. “She said that three countries have this star and moon on their flag: Turkey, which is reversed; Algeria; Tunisia. She said it has to be Tunisia, that there’s a mini Arc de Triomphe.” She pulls another piece of paper out of her pocket, some words scribbled across it. “She gave me directions to get there, to get to the guy when we make it there.”

“Nice work, Scar,” Robert says, nodding. “We owe you big.”

There are not many ships leaving for Tunisia from France, and after they get their tickets on the morning boat, they wait anxiously to see who else will show up. The boat is set to depart at five-thirty; it is five-fifteen by the time they find the right counter, book tickets, and make it to the correct gate. Anthony and Sebastian have caught up with them, but everyone else is still missing.

“This is the break we need,” Jeremy says. He knows that he is bouncing his leg up and down, but he can’t stop himself, the anxiety shooting through his veins every time someone passes by. “This is how we can get ahead.”

He hasn’t told the girls what his new plan is, hasn’t even talked to Chris about it, but he is going to get them as big of a lead as he can so that if it does come down to another foot race, there is no chance in hell any of them will be going home. Even so, in the back of his mind he is thinking about what will happen when there are only seven teams left or five or three. He tries to shake those thoughts away. They will deal with that bridge when they come to it.

Lizzie is leaning close to Chris, whispering something into his ear and jerking her head to the side, catching Jeremy’s eye as she does so. He tips his head to the side, can hear one of the lawyers around the corner, talking to his camera.

“There were a few quote unquote alliances floating around,” Robert says. His voice is faint, floating in the air just loud enough for them to catch a few sentences. “Us… Hemi and Ruffalo. Anthony and Sebastian. Those kind of fell apart. You know, people are competitive, wanna do things on their own after a point. That’s fine.”

Their cameraman says something to them, and Pratt answers. “Oh, for sure. The firefighters and the girls, they’re still really tight. Can’t see one without the other.”

Another pause, another question. “No, we’re not worried,” Robert says confidently, and Jeremy catches himself smirking, looking down to hide it. Scarlett is listening now too, her eyes narrowed. “We gotta beat everyone to win. It doesn’t matter who’s paired up with who at the end of the day.”

“This is a football game,” Pratt says. “For four quarters, we knock the shit out of each other, and people have to understand that it’s a game. It’s a game that needs to be played hard.”

Scarlett has a tiny silver ring on her right hand, and she is spinning it around and around and around, the only sign that she is nervous. Out of the four of them, Scarlett is easily the most composed. Lizzie is always the one at the front of the pack, yelling directions and blazing a trail. Chris is the most likely to whine, but also the most likely to give you a hand if you need it; sometimes he loses his head a little bit, and it is Jeremy’s job to bring him back. Jeremy, for his part, is the anxious one, always thinking about what might go wrong and what number they are at and how they could make up time.

Scarlett is even, chill, relaxed, comes off as calm even if they are stressed or have been sitting in an airport for hours or are waiting for a fucking boat to leave before the rest of the contestants catch up to them.

A thought keeps crossing Jeremy’s mind, coming back to him now that he hears what Pratt is saying to the camera: if it comes down to a million dollars or Scarlett, he would take Scarlett every goddamn day.

It is a thought he is keeping to himself until he can figure out what the hell it means.

At the last second, at the very last possible second, the rest of the teams roll in. Pratt doesn’t even bother trying to hide his disappointment. “We’re getting like six, seven hour leads in all of these legs, and then we get to the transportation piece, the plane or the ferry, and we’re all caught the hell up again. It’s like there’s almost no use in being a better team.”

Scarlett rolls her eyes at Jeremy; he knows that she thinks Pratt is whiny and overconfident, way too full of himself. But as much as it sucks that everyone is here, at least it means that they are together. They will just have to push harder to get back ahead and stay there.

Across the aisle, Tom and Brie are bickering light-heartedly. They are the only team in the race that Jeremy haven’t seen yelling at each other at some point. The stress is a lot; it is turning people who are probably perfectly nice and calm and lovely people into something else entirely. Tom and Brie, on the other hand, are always laughing, messing with each other, the ones sleeping on the airport floor or starting a game of Uno with strangers.

They are fighting over the clue, Tom trying to grab it away from Brie and failing miserably. “I don’t want it like that,” Tom says, imitating Brie as best he can. “Pat me on the back. That’s too soft. That’s too hard. Give me-”

“Shut up,” Brie says, laughing as she folds the clue into a paper airplane to throw at his face.

“A million dollars is a lot of money to some people,” Tom says to his camera crew as Brie sits down next to him. He keeps his voice quiet, and no one else seems to be listening, all of them wrapped up in their own conversations or interviews or thoughts. “But it’s not worth our relationship. You know, I’ve never been outside of the country. I’ve barely ever been outside California. I wanted to get a chance to really experience life with my sister. I’m just glad we’re on the same page.”

Jeremy stops himself from nodding along at Tom’s words. Instead, he just glances over at Scarlett, who is looking at him, her cheeks turning red when he catches her. He just winks at her, wants to pull her around the corner and kiss her but settles for slinging his arm across the back of her chair so that his fingers just brush her shoulder.

Finally - finally, finally, finally - the boat leaves, taking them from Marseilles across the Mediterranean Sea to Tunisia. They all stand on the deck, the air whipping around them and calming tempers a little bit. Scarlett stands next to Jeremy at the rail, looking at the water passing by them, and she slips her hand under his. For a moment, they can all relax. Once the boat lands, it will be a free for all, but for now… For now, they are okay.

* * *

It takes almost twenty-four hours to get from France to Tunisia, which is more than enough time for Scarlett to get in her own head.

As always, the four of them pool their money, managing to get a small stateroom for the duration of their trip. Scarlett thinks it is the best decision they have made so far, everyone else resorting to sleeping on benches or couches or anywhere they can find. The four of them have somewhere they can go to get away from the tension and animosity; they have been so wrapped up in each other that until today they haven’t really noticed that the other teams are fighting amongst each other, and she would prefer to keep it that way.

There is only one bed in the stateroom, and it is barely big enough to hold two of them at a time. “Go ahead,” Scarlett says to Lizzie, who looks like she is about to fall over. “I’m not that tired yet.”

“Same,” Jeremy says quickly.

Chris shrugs, practically slamming the door shut in their faces, leaving Scarlett alone with Jeremy for the first time since the evening before. She thinks of what Lizzie had said (“Jeremy is what you deserve”); she sees the way that he is looking at her now; she remembers how careful he had been around her last night; and she knows without a doubt that she wants more.

“Alright, Scar,” he says. “We’ve got at least four hours to kill while they sleep and nowhere to go. Now what?”

They end up in the cafeteria, eating an early lunch with Chadwick and Letitia. The two of them have been kind of out of the loop too, seem more laidback than a lot of the other contestants. They have no idea what is going on between the lawyers, Sebastian and Anthony, and Hemsworth and Mark, but apparently there had been quite the falling out.

They sit there for hours, drinking coffee and talking and waving to other teams as they filter in, but after a while, all Scarlett wants to do was get out of there. She looks around. The ferry is nice, reminds her more of a cruiseliner than the ferries she has been on before. There are big crystal chandeliers and a giant sweeping staircase and big stuffed couches, walls made of blocks of colored glass and art dotting the walls. Tom and Brie are fast asleep on one of the couches in the corner near the stairs; other teams have found nooks and crannies to make beds out of their backpacks and portable sleeping bags.

Suddenly, she just wants to be away from everyone. They have about sixteen more hours to go, sixteen hours where she doesn’t have to think about the race or the competition or what everyone else is thinking. Sixteen hours where they don’t have to strategize. Sixteen hours where she doesn’t have to worry about losing Jeremy. Sixteen hours where they can just be themselves, where they can act like they met at a bar or at the park or on Tinder.

It is sixteen hours she is not going to waste.

“Come on.” She slips her hand through Jeremy’s, feeling his fingers rough against hers, and she pulls him around the corner. She has no idea where they are going, passes by the staircase and more staterooms and a gym, the ship full of people.

“Where are we going, Scar?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well…” She looks back at him, and he is smirking at her. “You know I’ll follow you anywhere.”

They end up at the very front of the ship, where it is finally blessedly quiet save for the sound of the water rushing by far below and crashing against the sides of the ship. The hallway opens up into the fresh air, the top deck high above their heads and no one else around. “You know we can’t go any further than this,” Jeremy says. “Unless you want to swim, which I do not suggest because-”

Scarlett drops his hand, grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him towards her, trapping her hands against his chest as she kisses him. There is a split second where she is worried that he might pull away, that he might feel differently after what she said to him last night, but there is no hesitation. Instead he just pulls her closer, immediately taking control and making her feel like her heart is going to stop.

She feels like she is holding onto him for dear life even as he is the one holding her up, her skin burning up underneath his hands where he is gripping onto her waist and under his mouth as he moves down the side of her neck, nipping at the skin where it meets her shoulder. She arches her back as he trails his hands up her spine, slipping her hand behind his head to pull him back up towards her.

“This isn’t slow, sweetheart,” he says into her ear, his voice raspy and warm and making her feel weak in the knees. “This is the opposite of slow.”

“I want you.” The words escape out of her mouth before she can stop them, and he pulls back to look at her, his pupils so blown that his eyes look almost black.

“Yeah?” He bites his lip as he looks at her, her throat suddenly going dry.

“Yes.”

“Scar.” He kisses her again, catching her mouth underneath his between his words. “I want you too…” She chases after him as he pulls back to speak. “You have… no idea how much.”

“But?”

“But you said you wanted to go slow.” He brushes a piece of hair out of her face. “And I’m assuming you had a reason for doing that.”

“I… Yeah… I mean…”

“It’s okay,” he says quickly. “You don’t have to explain.” He backs her up against the railing and brackets her in with his arms, holding her there tightly before fitting his mouth to hers again. He works his leg in between hers, and she pushes herself against him, wanting nothing more than to take him back to their room, kick Lizzie and Chris out, and lock the door for the next sixteen hours.

Instead she stays there, kissing him until she can’t breathe and keeping her eyes shut tight, enjoying the moment, enjoying the place, and enjoying him while she still can.

* * *

Jeremy really wants to take a break from the game. It’s not just that he’s exhausted, weary down to his bones, or stressed from the constant second-guessing and strategizing. He wishes more than anything that he could get a couple of hours with Scarlett without thinking about where they’re going next or how to get out in front and stay there. But they are all tied for first place, and it is anyone’s race at this point.

Northern Africa is a far cry from Seattle. The Tunisian flag flies everywhere, from balconies overlooking crowded alleys to marketplace stalls to the backs of the cars that flood narrow streets. There are so many people shoved into such a tiny space that it is hard to even move. Once the boat docks and they are herded through customs, it is a footrace down the gangway. Luckily, Scarlett had gotten directions from the girl she talked to back in Marseilles, and Jeremy knows that they will have to peel away from the group as fast as they can, that the lawyers will be right on their heels.

There is a long line of taxis waiting at the port, and they all hop into them, taking off. Jeremy’s heart is pounding in his chest; being on the boat for so long had almost stripped him of the knowledge of what being in the thick of things actually felt like. He sees Sebastian and Anthony pass them on the left. “Oh, fuck, I’m so nervous,” he blurts out.

“Go, go, go!” Chris says, pointing. “See if you can get ahead of them!” A taxi darts out of a side street, practically hitting them, brakes screeching and horns blaring. “Jesus.”

People are standing in the middle of the street with no regard for the cars flying by. They pass through roads ripped up for construction, metal barriers fencing off the sidewalks. There are more cobblestones, always more cobblestones, the bane of Jeremy’s existence at this point. The air is heavy and thick and filled with unfamiliar smells and a little smokiness. They are in the car for about ten minutes, weaving through side streets, when they pop out onto a main road, the replica of the Arc de Triomphe sitting squatly in front of them.

“There it is!” Jeremy leans forward, pointing. Every team seems to be there, people piling out of their cars, throwing money at their drivers, and grabbing their backpacks from the trunk. Jeremy and Chris join the fray, pushing past Michael and Tessa to get out in front. Everyone is running; Letitia practically bowls someone over, screaming sorry in French as she passes.

The man is standing in front of a large fountain in the middle of the square, water rising from the ground in arcs. Jeremy and Chris get there first, everyone crashing in behind them. “As Salaami,” Jeremy says breathlessly, trying to appear as calm as possible. Chris repeats his words, shaking the man’s hand, and he hands them a clue.

“What is it?” Chris asks.

“I don’t know,” Jeremy snaps. “I haven’t opened it yet.” He rips open the envelope, pulling out a map and the piece of paper with the clue on it. “Detour.”

“Read it, read it.”

Jeremy is going to kill him. They are on leg number four, and his temper is rising steadily. Chris is his best friend, but if Jeremy doesn’t get a little bit of space from him, they’re going to end up fighting as much as some of the other teams already are. “You must choose between one of two destinations, both deep in this Tunisian marketplace. Your first choice is full body brew, where you must make your way through a labyrinth of tiny, unmarked passages in order to find this coffee shop.” Jeremy stops reading, finds a photograph caught in the map. “It doesn’t say the name,” he says, looking it closely. “We just have this picture.”

“Great,” Chris says. “That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. What’s the second choice?”

Jeremy looks back at the clue. “Full body massage. The place you are looking for has been circled on the map, so it will be easy to find. However, when you reach the destination, you must lie down for a twenty minute massage.”

“What do you wanna do?”

“Fuck.” Jeremy rubs the back of his neck as he looks around for the girls. They are just getting their clue from the man standing in front of the fountain, and he waves them over. Lizzie is already reading it as they walk over, handing Scarlett the map and the picture.

“What do you want to do?” Scarlett asks.

There is a lot of going back and forth; this is the first Detour where there hasn’t been a clear answer. They look at the map which is a mess of colors and names and tiny streets, ask a couple of people walking by in the crowded square whether they know where the coffee shop is just by looking at the photograph, and as much as Jeremy wants to lie down, they decide that twenty minutes is just too long.

“Coffee it is,” Scarlett says. “Lead the way, LO.”

If there’s one thing that Lizzie is really good at, it’s charming the pants off of everyone she meets. Within seconds, she finds a group of teenage boys and shows them the picture. When they tell her that yes, of course they know where that shop is, it doesn’t take much convincing for them to agree to take them right to it. They are all completely smitten with Lizzie, crowding around her and asking her about New York as they make their way through the tiny streets.

As they pass through the marketplace, all eyes are on them, people standing up and watching them go by, Kat and Hayley out in front, Dave and Don bringing up the rear. The lawyers are right in front of them, Sebastian and Anthony close behind. They are surrounded by giant intricate rugs and colorful clothing and gold plates and something smells really fucking good and Jeremy is really fucking hungry. Scarlett keeps brushing up against him as they dodge shoppers and onlookers, and it’s overall really overwhelming.

The teenagers lead them right to the coffee shop. They manage to shake the lawyers and the frat boys at some point, and for a short time they are the only ones in the square. There is a counter and a bunch of tables and chairs and lights strung overhead, and it seems like a little oasis smack in the middle of the teeming marketplace, but of course they have absolutely no time to enjoy it. They go right up to the counter, order some coffee, and down it as fast as they can, paying no mind to the fact that there’s steam rising up from their cups.

The guy behind the counter also hands them two lighters, and they move off to the side to study them as teams start arriving in the square. Jeremy sees the lawyers and Anthony and Sebastian, followed closely by Tom and Brie and Michael and Tessa. “What is it?” Lizzie asks, squinting at the lighter. Jeremy turns one over in his palm, Scarlett leaning closer to look at it. As her hair brushes against him and he catches a whiff of coconut, he can barely breathe.

“It looks like the Coliseum, doesn’t it?” she asks. “But it’s not.”

There is a tiny little drawing on the lighter, an amphitheater that does look remarkably like the Coliseum, and the words El Djem, Tunisia are emblazoned below it. Lizzie takes hers over to the group of teenagers. “Do you know where this is?” she asks them.

They confer amongst themselves for a moment. “We gotta get out of here,” Chris mutters to Jeremy, looking around. Teams are already starting to disperse; some of them have guides of their own, some don’t, and everyone seems a little panicked. Jeremy nods.

Lizzie comes back. “It’s a coliseum about two hundred miles away,” she says. “They said we can take a taxi or a train.”

“Okay, so which one?”

“Taxi is faster, but more expensive,” Chris says.

“Thank you, Einstein.”

“Jackass.”

Jeremy rolls his eyes at Chris. He cannot be stuck in a taxi with him for two hundred miles. “Train,” he says. “We gotta take the train.”

The teenagers take them to the train station, Jeremy and Lizzie handing over as many francs as they can find, thanking them profusely. “Jesus, Liz,” Chris says once they have their tickets and are getting on the train. “People just fall in love with you left and right, huh?”

“What can I say?” She winks at him. “I’m a delight.”

Jeremy is looking at the lighter again. “What does the back say?” Chris asks him. “Oh, go here. I thought it said go home.” Scarlett laughs, swinging her legs up onto Jeremy’s lap as soon as they sit down.

There is no one else on the train, Jeremy realizes when he and Scarlett do a walkthrough. He doesn’t know if it’s because they are out in front or if it’s because everyone else decided to take taxis, but either way he does not feel good. He spends the rest of the train ride wondering if this is it for them, if they’ve ended up making a decision that is going to screw them, and not even Scarlett’s hand in his own can keep the negative thoughts from creeping into his brain and settling there.

* * *

Scarlett is sitting in a two thousand year old coliseum with Chris, waiting with bated breath for Jeremy and Lizzie to appear out of the maze. They had found it with no issues, got the clue and read the Roadblock that instructed one member of each team to brave the dark tunnels underneath the amphitheater, armed only with a torch, to find a sword hanging on a wall. Since Scarlett and Chris had done the last underground Roadblock, Jeremy and Lizzie volunteer to go.

There is no one else there when they get there. Scarlett knows that Jeremy fears the worst, that everyone else took a taxi and made it there an hour before they did, completing the task quickly and leaving them in the dust. She is trying to be more optimistic, but with every minute that they are under the coliseum, her heart starts beating faster.

Chris seems calm, but he is twirling the lighter around and around, betraying himself every time he clicks it on and off. “They’ve been down there a while, right?” he asks. The lawyers had come running up after Jeremy and Lizzie had disappeared into the tunnels, Pratt taking the lead. Robert is sitting on Scarlett’s other side, quiet and pensive. No one else is around.

“Yeah,” Scarlett murmurs. “Long time.” The directions had been simple enough: take your torch and walk in a clockwise direction through the tunnels. She could only imagine that it was a hell of a lot more confusing in practice than in theory.

“You guys see anyone else?” Robert asks.

Chris shakes his head. “Just you.”

“Scar!” Suddenly she hears yelling. “Evans!”

Chris stands up, shading his eyes and looking down into the mouth of the tunnel. Scarlett stands up too. “That Jeremy?”

“Gotta be,” Chris says. “You can’t miss that mouth.” He squints. “Renner?”

“We’re coming!” he yells, his voice getting louder and louder. “We got them!”

About thirty seconds later, he bursts out of the tunnel, Lizzie on his heels. “Run!” she yells. “Pratt’s right behind!” Robert jumps up, grabbing his backpack, but Chris and Scarlett are already halfway across the floor of the amphitheater. Phil is up on one of the levels, waiting on the mat at the top of a set of stairs. They meet Jeremy and Lizzie at the bottom, taking them two at a time.

“Time to face the music,” Jeremy says to Scarlett as they make their way up. His torch is dripping fire, and he has the sword in the other hand. At the top of the stairs, there is a spot for them put both the torch and the sword, Jeremy and Chris stepping onto the mat first.

Scarlett holds her breath, gripping Lizzie’s hand tightly. “We’re not going out,” she says to Lizzie, Robert and Pratt coming up the stairs behind them. “But we may be dead last.”

“It’s okay,” Lizzie says. “We’ll work our way up. We always do.”

They are first and second. Jeremy turns around and kisses Scarlett full on the mouth, right in front of Phil and Chris and Lizzie and the lawyers.

She knows that she is more elated about the kiss than the second place finish. She knows she is in trouble. She knows that she was right to tell him that they should go slow. The only thing she doesn’t know, she realizes as they stand on top of the coliseum, looking down at the world, is how long she can keep herself away from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7vfpk7ZKqu0ZSnYKahc96T?si=bTCFg5H7SKWELpB999WGcQ


	7. the cloud fell down and covered us in white

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> well we made our way up to the tree line  
> when the cloud fell down and covered us in white  
> and the world below was like a rolling sea  
> so we watched from the tallest peak  
> / as we ran by the national parks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahem.  
> i've finally figured out where the hell i am going with this (it's about time), so i'm hoping to start updating more frequently.  
> i can't write smut, so let's just move past it as quickly as we can.  
> songs (thank you for the playlist, emily): droptop in the rain (slowed down version) by ty dolla $ign, ride by somo, ride by lana del rey, everyday by ariana grande, touch it by ariana grande, skin by rihanna, guys my age and by hey violet.  
> emily finished "lightning strikes at sunset" over the weekend so go read it because it is PERFECT. additionally, we are planning a collab fic so stay tuned for that because it's going to be w i l d.
> 
> thank you thank you thank you for reading and supporting, for the comments and love, and for making me feel like i know what the hell i am doing.  
> instagram: @amandaalexands | tumblr: @clintxbarton

Hours. They have been in the desert for hours. They know they have been eliminated, and Jeremy doesn’t even care. All he wants to do is see someone, anyone. All he wants to do is see Scarlett. All he wants to do is make it back.

* * *

“Star Wars?” Chris says. “You’re kidding me.”

“It says Tataouine. That’s definitely Star Wars.”

“Well, would you look at that?” Chris makes what Lizzie has been calling his turtle face, a mix of confusion and exhaustion with a tiny dash of enthusiasm, as much as any of them can muster.

After they slide into the pit stop, they are too exhausted to do anything but eat as quickly as possible, shower off all the dirt and grime of the day, and fall into bed. Even with Jeremy on her mind, Scarlett falls asleep almost immediately, her alarm going off way too soon. The miles they’ve traveled and the distance under their feet are catching up to her, and she feels bone tired all the time.

They leave the hostel sitting in the shadow of the coliseum at exactly four o’clock in the morning. It is pitch black outside, and they are only able to read the clue by the light of the torch propped up next to them. The clue doesn’t say much, just reads “You are off to Tataouine.” There is a picture of a statue with the clue, a giant bronze globe sitting atop a white marble base.

“That’s Star Wars,” Lizzie says as she looks at the clue. “I’m sure of it.”

“Well, where is it?”

“Do I look like an atlas?”

It is easier to find than they realize, even if it is not a short journey. There are taxis tooling around the city, notwithstanding the late hour, and the driver of one of them knows exactly where the monument is. Scarlett and Lizzie get into that cab, Jeremy telling their driver to just follow them.

“What do you think Maxwell is doing?” Chris asks, laying his head down against the back of the seat and closing his eyes.

“Not thinking about you, that’s what,” Jeremy grumbles.

“Could you please get laid already? I can’t take this attitude anymore.”

Jeremy cuts his eyes at the camera and then towards Chris, narrowing them and shaking his head slightly. He has been thinking more and more about what their lives are going to look like outside of the race, what his relationship with Scarlett is going to look like. He is fully aware that soon everyone he knows will be watching him on their televisions, will be watching him fall for this girl, will see him with his arm around her or curled up in the same sleeping bag or kissing her on the top of a Tunisian coliseum. He doesn’t want the entire world to also be privy to his sex life, or lack thereof as it now stands.

When - if - he does sleep with Scarlett for the first time, he doesn’t want it discussed on camera, and he needs to get Chris away from that topic as quickly as he can.

He spends the rest of the car ride thinking about the ferry ride, about how close he was to giving in to her. He doesn’t know why she takes it slow, isn’t going to question it, but he knows that if she tells him one more time that she wants him, he isn’t going to have an ounce of self-control left in his body.

By the time they get to the monument, the sun is high in the sky. All they can see for miles is sand and dirt, rock formations and tiny villages scattered across the land, scattered trees and scraggly bushes, all struggling to grow in the sweltering heat.

“You got a good look at it?” Chris asks, holding up the picture.

“Yes.” Jeremy rolls his eyes. “It’s a globe.”

“Easy, brother.”

They come to a small town, just a couple of houses and trees, round a corner. The monument is sitting there, tall and proud, the sun hitting the bronze globe just right and sending light shining into their eyes. “There it is!” Jeremy says, pointing. The girls are parked in front of it, just getting out of their car. In front of the statue is a line of dark blue Jeeps, one for each of the teams, Jeremy figures. As they get closer, they see that there is a yellow and white flag hanging in the window of each Jeep.

Scarlett is hopping into the front seat of one of the Jeeps, grabbing the clue that is hanging from the rearview mirror. “Christ, there’s the lawyers,” Chris says, jumping out and grabbing their backpacks as soon as the taxi starts to roll to a stop. Jeremy sprints to the Jeep next to Scarlett’s, throwing the door open and grabbing the clue.

“Detour,” she says to him, her door open.

“Listening or puzzling,” Jeremy reads out loud. Lizzie is getting into the backseat of their Jeep, rolling her window down so that she can hear. “Puzzling requires you to solve a puzzle at Ksar Ouled Soltane. It is a hard to find place, but the puzzle is simple. Listening requires you to play a game with walkie-talkies at Ksar Hadada. Because it was used as a Star Wars movie set, it is easy to find, but the game is difficult.” Jeremy looks up. “What are we thinking?”

“Star Wars,” Lizzie says immediately. “Please, please, please. If we could take a detour for Evans to see a damn elephant, then I should get this one.”

Scarlett is unfurling the map across her lap, looking at it carefully. “Ksar Hadada is right there,” she says after a few seconds, circling it with a pen. She is squinting, holding it up to her face. “I can’t even see the other one.” Jeremy leans in her window, looking down at the map, and he is so close that he can feel her breath on his cheek. He thinks she swallows, her cheeks flushed, but he can’t tell.

“Alright.” Jeremy makes the executive decision before a squabble can break out. “Star Wars it is.”

“Yes!” Lizzie bounces in her seat. “Let’s go.”

Chris drives while Jeremy navigates, and thankfully the village is easy to find. The girls get out of their Jeep right behind them, Lizzie telling Scarlett that The Phantom Menace was filmed here. It is a hill town, small houses made out of what looks like clay and all connected together, a maze of hidden courtyards and stairways that stretches out of sight as they walk in the main arch.

The lawyers have followed them here. Jeremy is getting kind of sick of them, especially after Pratt’s comments in the Port of Marseilles. It is nobody’s business what is going on between him and Scarlett except him and Scarlett, even if he did make out with her in front of God and everybody the day before.

He follows Scarlett down into the village, the whole thing a few steps below ground level. It is dusty and hot, the sun relentless. There is a table at the entrance with walkie-talkies and instructions. Lizzie grabs two, handing one to Chris as Scarlett reads the rules. “There is a walkie-talkie hidden somewhere inside the caves which lie ahead. Use one of these to find the other one.”

The lawyers take off in one direction, so they decide to go the other. There are hundreds of tiny chambers, small rooms and narrow halls and low doorways. They duck through them, Chris hitting his head more than once. Lizzie is, once again, leading the way and talking into her walkie-talkie the whole time.

“Check, check, check, check,” she keeps saying, the rest of them listening closely and waiting to hear her voice over the second walkie-talkie. When they come to a courtyard, they split up, all sprinting into a room to check it.

Suddenly, Jeremy hears something. “Wait,” he hisses. “Shut up.” He has no idea where the other lawyers are or if anyone else has gotten here yet. He cocks his head to the side, closing his eyes and listening. “Liz, say something else.”

“Hello?”

“There it is.” He whips around, pushes open a wooden door but there is nothing there. “Stay there,” he says to Lizzie. “Keep doing it. Keep talking.”

Scarlett follows him, Chris staying with Lizzie. They run down a staircase, the sound of Lizzie talking getting louder and louder even as they get farther away from her. As they get closer, sliding into a room to see the walkie-talkie sitting on a shelf next to a large clay pot, they can hear her saying “Scarlett loves Renner” over and over.

“Okay!” Scarlett says, grabbing it quickly, and even in the darkness of the room, he can see the heat flooding her cheeks. She presses a button. “Got it, LO. You can shut up now.” There is a sign next to the walkie-talkie instructing them to leave it there, so Scarlett puts it back down, Jeremy grabbing two clues out of the clay pot and following her out of the room.

As they are running back towards the entrance, they hear people talking; it sounds like Tom and Brie, but they don’t want to get close enough to see. “Wait,” Chris whispers, holding his arm out so they all come skidding to a stop behind him. They wait until Tom and Brie take off into the maze before they sneak out, not wanting anyone to see where they came from.

“Did you see Bert and Ernie?” Scarlett has given the lawyers a new nickname, coming up with it after she heard them talking while they were waiting for the ferry.

“I heard them yapping it up as we were coming back,” Jeremy says. They pass back through the archway, seeing the lawyers’ Jeep still sitting there next to their own, two more beside it. “We’re in the clear.”

The next clue instructs them to travel north to Ksar Ghilane, navigating their way along a series of treacherous roads using a compass, a map, and painted yellow rocks on the side of the road. And thus starts the beginning of the end.

* * *

Lizzie is throwing up in the backseat.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Scarlett keeps asking. She should have had Lizzie drive, she knows, but Lizzie is a far better navigator than Scarlett.

“I’m fine,” Lizzie says in between dry heaves. There is nothing in her stomach at this point, but she is still doubled up with a bag between her knees. “Just keep driving.”

They are trying to find a singular yellow flag in the middle of the goddamn desert, all sand and dirt and rocks and tiny trees that aren’t much more than bushes. All they’ve got is a map, a fucking compass that neither of them understand, and the promise of some yellow rocks on the roadside. They have gotten lost about a dozen times, the yellow rocks popping up every few hundred yards until they make a wrong turn, then disappearing completely.

They make it the mile to the first yellow flag, figure there will be another task waiting for them there, but that task turns out to be to keep navigating their way through the desert to the next flag and then the next and then the next. They end up driving in circles more than a handful of times. Her eyes hurt from squinting against the sun to try to find the rocks; her back hurts from hunching over the wheel, trying to keep the Jeep from drifting into the soft sand on either side of the road; her brain hurts from trying to keep calm. She keeps glancing in her rear view mirror nervously, but there is no one behind them.

They lose the boys at some point. Jeremy is driving, Chris in the backseat with Dave, and she hopes that he is having better luck at keeping his breakfast in his stomach than Lizzie is. She hopes that they aren’t completely lost. She hopes that she is going in the right direction. She hopes that this hellish day will be over soon.

It has been hours since they’ve seen another team. It has been hours since they set out from the Star Wars movie set. It has been hours since she has been with Jeremy, the longest amount of time she has spent away from him since the race started. She wonders if it would be overreacting to think that it feels like a part of her is missing.

She has gotten so used to having him right next to her, to being able to look over at him and get a kind word or a wink or a smirk when everything feels like it is falling apart. It doesn’t feel like they are two separate teams: Scarlett and Lizzie, Jeremy and Chris. It feels like they are Scarlett and Lizzie and Jeremy and Chris, even though she knows at the end of the day that the million dollars isn’t going to go to all four of them.

The car is bumping over rocks and ruts in the road, and even though Scarlett has never gotten motion sickness in her life, she feels like she may throw up too. So far Scarlett has been able to stay calm, but with every second and minute and hour that tick by, she feels like they have made some sort of mistake. Somehow she manages to find her way back every time she gets lost. And the rocks keep on coming and the flags keep on appearing in the distance and she keeps driving until she realizes that the pit in her stomach has more to do with the fact that she doesn’t know where Jeremy is than with their own current status.

She should have kissed him good-bye before they left the Star Wars set, regardless of who was there or the time crunch they were under. She can hear Bradly talking into the radio connected to Hayley’s; she knows that with one wrong turn, they could be lost in the desert for hours. There is a tinge of panic running through the car; Kat and Hayley seem more subdued than normal, and she wonders what the hell is going on with the other teams.

“I wonder what happened to Bert and Ernie,” Lizzie says as she sits up again, wiping her mouth and trying to catch her breath. “We haven’t seen them in hours either.”

“I don’t know.” Scarlett is gripping the wheel so tightly her fingers are starting to ache. “Lost, if we’re lucky.”

Scarlett has never been lucky in her life. Not until she met Jeremy. She wonders, for the hours that they are driving around the Sahara Desert, if that luck has run out as quickly as it came.

After about six hours of driving, they see a puff of dust in the distance; as they get closer Scarlett realizes that it is a blue Jeep pulling off the road onto the desert. She hopes against hope that it is Jeremy and Chris, and she follows it, past the route marker with an arrow pointing towards the right and out onto the sand. They bump over sand dunes, cresting a hill to see a clue box and a herd of camels.

“Oh fuck yeah,” Lizzie says. Her face is pale and her hair is falling out of the bun on top of her head, but she has stopped throwing up. “No more car.”

Scarlett’s heart falls when Anthony and Sebastian get out of the car in front of them, still no sign of any other team. “Hey!” Anthony yells back to them, shading his eyes against the sun which is only getting hotter as the day goes on. “Are you okay?”

Even so, Scarlett is glad to see him, and she makes her way through the deep sand as quickly as she can, hugging him as soon as she gets close enough. “That was…”

“Hell,” Anthony says, nodding. “Never in my life have I been that scared.”

“Or frustrated,” Sebastian grumbles. “You whipped a compass at my head.”

“You wouldn’t move your seat forward! I had absolutely no room. I think my legs are going to be permanently asleep.”

“Have you seen anyone else?” Scarlett asks.

“Just you guys,” Sebastian says. “Not a hint of anyone else all goddamn day.”

“You think we’re last?”

“Could be.” Sebastian grabs a couple of clues, passing one back to Scarlett. Lizzie is carefully getting out of the car, one hand on her stomach and her other wrist pressed against her mouth. “Just pray somebody else fucked up worse than us.”

The clue is, of course, a Roadblock, the hint reading “who wants to go for a ride?”

“LO? You wanna do it?”

Lizzie pauses, taking a breath gamely. “Hell yeah.”

They assume it will be a quick camel ride around the dune and back again, but it turns out to be so much worse than that. “Climb onto the camel and follow a compass bearing two hundred and forty degrees towards the flag flying in the distance,” Sebastian reads, craning his neck to see if he can spot a yellow and white flag. If Scarlett never sees a flag again after this leg, it will be far too soon. “That’s easy enough - oh holy Jesus. The player who doesn’t ride must walk alongside you.”

“Great,” Anthony says. “That’s just great. You get to ride a camel and I get to walk next to you. Awesome.”

As tired as Scarlett is, she is glad that Lizzie will be the one riding the camel because there is no way that girl could walk even a few steps after the amount of vomiting she just did in the car. Scarlett forces as much water down her throat as she can before they go over to the camels, but she knows Lizzie is going to be in a world of hurt until they make it to the pit stop.

Anthony and Scarlett get ready as Sebastian and Lizzie meet the men who will be helping them get up onto the camels, tying bandanas over their faces and pulling baseball caps down low over their foreheads. “Every goddamn time,” Anthony says. “First the sewer and now this.”

“Tell me about it,” Scarlett says, although she hopes that this isn’t anywhere near as bad as that goddamn Parisian sewer.

Thankfully it is a short walk because it is beyond brutal. The temperature is over a hundred degrees, but Scarlett doesn’t want to take off her shirt, knowing that she’ll burn instantly. Sweat is rolling down her back as she trudges along next to the camel. Lizzie keeps asking her if she’s okay, the roles now reversed, and all she can do is nod, not wanting to speak for fear of getting a mouthful of sand.

Lizzie can see the flag once she gets up onto the back of the camel, a little oasis of tents and trees coming into view as they stomp over a dune, a little procession of the four of them and two camels. “You got screwed on this one, huh?” Sebastian says from up high.

“Oh, did I get screwed. I get screwed every time! Carry a torch, burn my arm. Walking in poop. Leading a camel with your fat ass on top of it.”

“You know what I wanna know is how the hell am I going to get down from here.”

Lizzie’s camel isn’t listening as well as Sebastian’s, and it turns into a foot race (or camel race) once they get closer to the flag. Even so, Scarlett isn’t worried, the tension in her chest easing just a little bit once she sees that there is only one other team waiting there.

They are third, coming in just between Anthony and Sebastian, who takes a flying leap off of his camel and sprints to the mat once they pass through the gate. Tom and Brie are sprawled out on the sand, breathing heavily, and Scarlett and Lizzie sit down next to them to wait.

* * *

They wait for a long time, hours and hours and hours. Teams trickle in at a snail’s pace. Michael and Tessa make it there about two hours after Scarlett and Lizzie. The lawyers show up another two hours after that, and the sun is starting to go down. Everyone has a horrific tale of getting lost in the desert; all of them drove around for ages trying to find the Roadblock. The lawyers damn near flipped their car when it got caught in a drift of sand, and they seem shaken, not their usual confident selves.

Scarlett is getting more and more scared with every minute that ticks by. There has been no sign of Jeremy and Chris; she asks every team that comes in, but no one has seen them, not since they left the Star Wars set, which was twelve hours before. She sees the producers talking amongst themselves; even Phil is involved. She eavesdrops as best as she can, can hear talk of sending out a helicopter to look for the two missing teams.

She isn’t even worried about this point that the two of them will be eliminated. She is worried that they are okay, that they haven’t gotten hurt or flipped their car or stranded somewhere in the desert. She knows that there is no chance in hell that the two of them would ever give up, that they are still out there somewhere, trying to find their way.

If he makes it back, she will tell him that she doesn’t want to take it slow anymore. He is the one that she has been waiting her entire life for; she isn’t going to wait even one second longer.

Lizzie is just as nervous as she is, although Scarlett thinks that Lizzie is doing a better job of hiding it. “It’s gonna be okay,” Lizzie tries to tell her, putting her hand on Scarlett’s knee. They are sitting on a rug outside one of the tents, Anthony and Sebastian on Scarlett’s other side. The two of them aren’t saying anything, but their presence is enough to assure Scarlett that she isn’t alone. Even the lawyers don’t have a snide comment to make.

Production is just starting to assemble a team to go look for them when a shape appears over the horizon, someone walking next to a camel. Everyone jumps up, running towards it, everyone except Scarlett, who can’t move her legs. She lets Lizzie pull her into a standing position, holding onto her arm tightly. She can’t see through the dark who it is, is praying that it’s Jeremy and Chris.

She doesn’t have to wait much longer to find out because she hears Jeremy yelling her name through the night. His voice sounds wrecked, raspy with sand and stress and the late hour. She practically drops to her knees when she hears it, knows that she wouldn’t be able to move a muscle without Lizzie dragging her forward.

As they get closer, slogging their way through the sand, she sees that it is Chris on the camel. The second Jeremy sees her, he drops the rope, leaving Chris to fend for himself and running towards her. He hits her so hard that he practically knocks the wind out of her, but she doesn’t care. He feels like he is shaking as he holds onto her. “I thought I lost you,” she murmurs, just loud enough for him to hear. “I thought this was it.”

“Me too.” He pulls back, pulls his bandana down to drop around his neck. “I just wanted to see you. I don’t care about the fucking race, I just-”

“Jeremy-”

“No, listen,” he says, not giving her a chance to tell him that Chadwick and Letitia are still out there somewhere, that he’s not out of it yet. “I know this is it for me and Chris, but I need you to know that this isn’t it for you and me. I promised you. I will not let go. I will not leave you.”

She doesn’t get a chance to tell him anything because Chris is dragging him to the mat, holding onto Lizzie tightly with the other arm, and she stands there with them, close enough to see the shock on their faces when Phil tells them that they are team number six, that they are still in the race. “But I-” Chris looks around. “What? Who’s still…?” His voice dies in his throat as he realizes that there are only six teams at the camp.

The rest of the night is even crazier. Chadwick and Letitia come driving into camp thirty minutes later. They had gotten so hopelessly lost that they had never made it to the Roadblock, had come across the camp just by coincidence. Phil tells them that they are eliminated, but everyone is so happy to see them and they are so happy to be found that no one really cares. People are hugging them and cheering and crowding around them to see them off, but Jeremy doesn’t let go of Scarlett’s hand the entire time. She wouldn’t let him even if he tried.

And then they are evacuated. They are supposed to stay in the camp overnight, everyone getting ready to head into their tents and fall asleep, but then production gets word that there is a massive sandstorm coming in and they need to get out of the desert as soon as possible. Scarlett has no problem with that. Scarlett sits next to Jeremy on the bus to Gabes, everyone too tired to say anything, to even move, her hand in his the entire time. When they get to their hotel in the capital city, there is no question that Scarlett will be staying with Jeremy.

There is no question in Scarlett’s mind of what she is about to do.

As soon as the door closes behind her, she turns to Jeremy, sees the look in her eyes, and she knows without a doubt that if she hadn’t said that she wanted to go slow, he would be on her right now. “Did you mean what you said?” Scarlett asks. “Back at camp. Are you sure?”

He takes a step towards her, dropping his backpack on the ground with a thump. “I meant it,” he says, and he doesn’t even have to ask her what she’s talking about. His hand twitches at his side, and he shoves them both in his pockets. “I’ll never let go, Scar. I’m with you to the end.”

And she knows: she knows that he isn’t her ex-boyfriend; she knows that he is the one she wants; she knows that her future starts to take shape in her head when she looks at him. So she steps towards him, meeting him in the middle, and she knows that he keeps his hands in his pockets when she reaches up and kisses him. He is trying to honor her request, and she is trying to tell him that any desire she had to go slow is out the window now that she knows he is her endgame.

“Fuck going slow, Jeremy,” she says, pulling back. He still has his hands in his pockets, and all she wants is for him to touch her. “Fuck waiting. Fuck pretending I don’t want you more than…” She stops before she finishes the sentence with “a million dollars.” “Just… fuck all of it.”

Jeremy’s breath catches in his throat. “Are you sure?”

“More sure than I’ve ever been about anything.”

Something flashes in his eyes, and Scarlett knows that he doesn’t need her to say it again. He rips his hands out of his pockets, bringing them up to cup her face, and if she thought that kissing Jeremy was good before, it was nothing like it is now. It’s different, hungry and heated and sending warmth pulsing through her, and she knows without a doubt that this time it’s heading somewhere.

She loses herself in the feeling as Jeremy drops his head, working on the skin on her neck as his hands dip underneath the bottom of her shirt, moving up her spine. She hears her breath hitch as he holds onto her tighter, so tightly that she knows she’ll have bruises in the morning, and he walks her backwards until she hits the bed, guiding her down carefully.

He is taking his time even as he eases her shirt over her head, discarding his on the floor next to it, her bra landing on the pile soon after, and she runs her hands down his back, feeling the hard muscles under her palms as she pulls him closer. Scarlett knows then that she will never get tired of kissing Jeremy, will never get enough of the way he feels against her, how gently he touches her, how he slips his hand just there as he pushes his hips down into hers, and she feels a whine escape her mouth before she hears it.

“What’s that, sweetheart?” he asks, dropping his head down to her ear, sending shivers through her entire body and goosebumps popping up on her skin. She doesn’t care that she hasn’t showered since last night, that there is sand everywhere and that she has no makeup again, because here with Jeremy she has never felt better.

“Please,” she says, unable to even say what she wants because she can’t find the words.

“You wanted slow,” Jeremy says, and she can feel the smirk on his face even if she can’t see it. “So I’m going to give you slow.”

And he does, takes his time as he settles himself between her legs, curling one hand around her wrists and pushing them up above her head. He takes his time as he pushes her pants down with the other hand, following the path of his fingers with his mouth until she feels like she’s going to come apart right then and there. He takes his time kicking his pants off, looking down at her with that cat-like grin that she has come to associate with him alone, the one that tells her that he’s in control and that he likes it. He takes his time whispering things into her ear, telling her all the things that he’s going to do to her in that raspy voice that makes her feel weak in the knees. And he takes his time doing them until she’s arching up into him and begging him to fuck her, the words sliding out of her mouth easily.

Then, finally, he lets go, his eyes darkening as he pushes into her. He moves slowly at first, waiting to see if she’s okay, but she rolls her hips up against his, and he swears, pressing sloppy kisses to her neck. His movements become less controlled by the second, and it is all Scarlett can do to keep her eyes locked on his as her vision blurs.

“Close,” she manages to blurt out, his hips stuttering against hers when she speaks. “Close.”

He grunts back something that she can’t even make out, and she feels something shoot through her bones at the amount of pure need that she can see in his eyes. She tangles her hands in his hair as she comes hard enough to make her feel like every nerve ending in her body is bright and lit up.

“Fuck, Scar.” He finishes soon after, every muscle in his body tensing whip cord tight before he collapses down onto the bed next to her, and she realizes that they haven’t even bothered to pull the blankets back or turn the lights on. “Holy shit,” he says, once he catches his breath. “If that’s what going slow is like, then it sure is worth it.”

Scarlett grins, biting her bottom lip between her teeth as he settles himself against her and she smoothes his hair back. “Enough with the slow,” she says. “Next time I get to be in charge.”

She realizes how easily the words come out, how quickly she assumes that there will be a next time, even as she knows that she there is nothing in the world right now but the two of them. There is no question in her mind that this is all that matters.

“We, uh…” He glances down at her. “Didn’t use anything.”

It isn’t until that moment that Scarlett realizes she didn’t even think about it, that she was too wrapped up in Jeremy and the moment to consider it. “It’s fine,” she says, shrugging as she kicks the blanket down. Jeremy reaches over to pull it free, settling it over them. “I’m on the pill, and I’m good if you are.”

“I’m good.” He kisses her shoulder. “I’m so good.”

“Does that mean you’re ready to go again?”

There is no missing the grin on his face as he pulls her on top of him, settling his hands on her hips.

They have all the time in the world for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7vfpk7ZKqu0ZSnYKahc96T?si=znbJ0perQ9eIiL3nW_VXYw


	8. esta no meu coracao, you are in my heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> running barefoot on the dusty ground  
> the street is alive as the sun goes down  
> oh i could never let you go  
> when you're tired but you feel awake  
> you're burning with every step you take  
> oh i will never let you go  
> esta no meu coracao, you are in my heart  
> / coracao by the national parks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we are really whipping through this thing because for some reason i am super motivated to write, so i'm just gonna keep going with it and see where it takes me.
> 
> this chapter's shoutouts:  
> emily, for talking me through plot holes and hyping me up more than i deserve  
> gracie, for making really great playlists that make me want to write (linked in the end notes)  
> shelby, for the late night live texts and the constant enthusiasm  
> everyone who has read, commented, kudo'd, reblogged, and made me love this experience so much
> 
> please please please go listen to coracao. it was one of two songs i was deciding between for the first dance at my wedding. ultimately didn't go with it but it is one of my favorite songs of all time.
> 
> also my first boyfriend's name was colin, so i am truly scarlett with her dumb bitch energy.
> 
> insta: @amandaalexands | tumblr: @clintxbarton

“Colin, huh?” Jeremy smirks as Scarlett knots her fingers in his hair. “Sounds like a douchebag name.”

“It is,” she manages to grit out, even though she’s biting her bottom lip so hard Jeremy is a little worried she might make herself bleed. “But can we not talk about him while you are doing this?”

It is two o’clock in the morning; Scarlett has to leave the pit stop in a little over an hour, and neither of them have slept since they got to the hotel in Gabes. Jeremy has much longer to wait; he and Chris won’t be able to leave until eight in the morning. Instead of wasting the hours that they have together sleeping, they make the choice to stay up, talking and blowing money on bad room service food and feeding it to each other in bed. And now Jeremy is going down on her so that she’ll be sure to remember him when she walks out of here in an hour.

She tells Jeremy about Colin when he asks; it is somewhere around midnight, and they are both a little delirious from having sex for the first time and the veins of adrenaline running through their systems and the fact that Jeremy almost didn’t make it here. He is sitting up against the headboard; she is wearing his t-shirt and her legs are slung over his lap, and he feels like he can barely breathe when he looks at her.

“So,” he says. Her cheeks are still flushed, and she looks up at him through the curtain of red hair falling over one eye. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but…” He hesitates, but only for a second. “How come you wanted to go slow?”

“It’s a long, really dumb story.”

“It can’t be that dumb.”

“Oh, it is.” But she tells him anyways, tells him about Colin, about how part of the reason she wanted to do this whole thing was to forget about him.

“And have you?” He leans forward, lacing his fingers through hers and brushing the other against her cheek.

“You have no idea, baby,” she says.

“Well,” he says, bringing her hand up to his lips and ghosting them over her knuckles. “I promise I’m never going to treat you like that.”

She tips her head sideways. “I know.”

They’re in the shower, washing away all of the sand from that stupid desert, when she asks him about his exes (or lack thereof, in his case). “I… uh…” Jeremy tries to concentrate, but she is making it increasingly more difficult, pushing him back against the wall of the shower and moving her hands down over his stomach before she drops to her knees. “I don’t really have any.”

Scarlett looks up at him, water clinging to her eyelashes and catching at the corners of her mouth, and he thinks he is going to lose it right then and there. “You don’t have any ex-girlfriends?”

“I haven’t dated anyone since high school,” he says, reaching out and grabbing the ledge holding the soap, just to have something to hang onto.

“Jeremy, you’re thirty.”

“Yeah, rub it in.” She does something that feels really good, and he tips his head back, hitting it against the wall and closing his eyes. “We aren’t all twenty-two anymore, hot sauce.”

They’re back in bed; he is teasing her about Colin and seeing how many times he can bring her to the edge before she yanks him up towards her, pushing him back and taking control. He is casual when he tells her that if he could pick only one superpower it would be sleeping with his eyes open, even as she is moving on top of him.

“Why?” She breathes out, biting back a gasp. “That’s disgust-” Her words cut out as he shifts his hips, and she braces herself with a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s my superpower,” he says, looking up at her, trying to memorize the look in her eyes as she hovers above him, about to come apart. “I get to pick whatever I want. Plus then I wouldn’t have to miss one single second with you.” She tightens up around him when she comes, pulling him along with her.

It isn’t until she is reluctantly getting dressed and tying her hair into a braid that he realizes that they haven’t talked about the race at all; it is the longest stretch of time that they have gone without strategizing since it began. He doesn’t want to be the one to bring it up, doesn’t want to break the bubble that they have formed around themselves. And he doesn’t want her to think that he’s asking her to throw away all of the progress that she has made just to wait for him.

Scarlett says it first. “So.” She clears her throat as she starts unpacking and repacking her backpack. “You’re going to be about four and a half hours behind.”

“Yeah,” he says, trying to act like the thought of being away from her doesn’t make him feel a little shaky. “I guess so.”

“What…” She clears her throat. “What should we do?”

“You go, Scar,” he says firmly. “Go and don’t look back.”

“But what if you get eliminated? What if this is the last time I see you?”

He scoots himself towards the end of the bed, sitting up and pulling her towards him. “We’re not going to get eliminated,” he says, a whole lot more confident than he actually feels. “And no matter what happens, this is not the last time I’m going to see you.”

She puts her hands on his shoulders, looking at him like she is trying to memorize his face. “You think?”

“I know.” He squeezes her waist. “I’ll make it back to you. Whatever it takes.”

“Whatever it takes.”

One more kiss, and she’s gone.

* * *

They are roughly halfway through the race, although it feels like it has been a whole lot longer than two weeks. They have been to South Africa, Zambia, France, Tunisia, have traveled about fifteen thousand miles, and there is no telling where they will go next, what else lies in front of them, how much they are going to have to go through. The teams are dwindling down; everyone left is ultra-competitive. They all want to win, and they are going to do whatever they have to in order to get to that finish line first.

And then there’s Scarlett, who can’t keep her mind off Jeremy, even though she knows it means that her head isn’t fully in the game.

She doesn’t care. She just had the best night of her life. She doesn’t give a fuck about the game right now.

“What happened?” she asks after Jeremy collapses down next to her. He rolls over onto his stomach, looking up at her, and there is a thin sheen of sweat on his back. “In the desert?”

“I let Evans navigate is what happened.” He rolls his eyes like he didn’t just escape elimination. “Dumb decision. Won’t happen again.”

For fourteen days, the four of them have been inseparable, but now it is three twelve in the morning, and she is standing on the mat with Lizzie, ripping open the next clue.

“Fifty bucks,” Lizzie mutters as she counts out the money. “That’s not good.” It is easily the least amount of money they have been given for a leg so far, and they don’t have the boys around to split costs with anymore. “Okay.” She shakes her head, starts reading. “Get yourselves to the Palace Hotel in Tunis.”

“That’s it?”

Lizzie sighs. “That’s it.”

The streets are dark; there is no one in sight. Scarlett supposes that they will have to find a taxi, but there is nothing out at this hour. So they just start wandering, backpacks on their backs, jackets zipped up tight because it’s chilly at night, even in a desert city. Sebastian and Anthony are also wandering around, and she can only assume that Brie and Tom are too. They have a couple of hours on Michael and Tessa, the fourth place team, so she isn’t too worried about them catching her. She can only hope that Jeremy and Chris find a way to stay in the game.

They walk around for a while before a taxi blows by them, and Lizzie drops her backpack to run after it, screaming into the night until it stops. They load their stuff in quickly, telling the driver that they need to go to Tunis.

It is three hundred miles away, light out by the time that they pull into the busy city. Scarlett manages to sleep a little bit on the ride, even though Lizzie desperately wants to know everything that happened the night before. “Nothing, LO,” she says, barely able to keep her eyes open once the taxi gets on the highway. “Nothing happened.”

“You’re a liar,” Lizzie says, even as she is falling asleep. “This conversation is not over.”

They pull into the roundabout in front of the Palace Hotel; it looks like something that you would see in Vegas, giant and white and grand. They get out, handing over some money and looking around. “Oh my God,” Scarlett says once she opens the clue. “Guess where we’re going?”

“Iceland,” Lizzie says immediately. “Brazil. New Zealand. Thailand. Greece.”

“Rome.” Scarlett says, cutting her off before she can go any further. They could play this game all day if they didn’t stop themselves. “We’re going to Rome.”

The clue tells them that they need to get themselves to Rome and find the spot circled on a photograph. It is an easy one this time - a photograph of the Colosseum, a building across the road from its entrance outlined in red. Scarlett’s heart lifts; she knows that all the teams usually catch up to each other at the airport, and that there is a good chance that this will give Jeremy and Chris the boost they need to be up at the top again.

There is a list of flights that will get them there; thank God they don’t have to go through the whole South Africa airport debacle again. They get into yet another taxi, following Sebastian and Anthony out of the parking lot and back onto the thoroughfare.

The airport is a madhouse, as they always are. They sprint through the crowds to get to the Tunisian Air counter, and as Scarlett glances at her watch, she realizes that Jeremy and Chris will have just left the pit stop. She hopes that they have an easier time getting a cab, that the roads are clear, that they will be here in a couple of hours, long before Scarlett and Lizzie have to get on a flight.

At the first counter, they are told that there is a strike going on at the airport in Rome, and that it is going to be almost impossible to get a flight. Anthony and Sebastian groan, turning around to sprint off to another counter, but Scarlett’s heart jumps.

This is the break that the guys need.

* * *

“We need to talk about the Fast Forward,” Chris says.

They are in a taxi on the way to Tunis. It is bright out and Jeremy is exhausted. After Scarlett left, he managed to get a few hours of shut eye, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Not that he would change what had happened for anything in the world, much less a couple of hours of sleep. “Yeah, yeah,” he says quickly. “I’m with you, brother. Whatever we got to do to make it to the top.”

He told Scarlett whatever it takes. He means that.

But they don’t need the Fast Forward. They get to the airport, expect to be sitting there with the lawyers or maybe completely on their own, but when they walk in the entire place is bedlam. He sees all of the teams, their camera guys and sound guys and even the production assistants, who are usually long gone at this point, all of them milling around.

“What the hell is going on?” he asks Cobie when she spots them, coming over to them.

“Strike in Rome at the airport,” she says shortly. She looks tired, bags under her eyes and cell phone clutched in her hand. “We had a bunch of seats blocked on flights, but there aren’t any flights going out.”

“So… what do we do?” Chris asks.

“I can’t tell you.” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. We’re stuck here too, if that’s any consolation.”

Like Jeremy cares at all that they’ve come to a stand still. He doesn’t care about jackshit if he’s with Scarlett. And there she is, barreling towards him and practically knocking him over. Lizzie is right behind her, greeting Chris a little less enthusiastically.

“You made it!” she squeals into his ear, and he tightens his arms around her.

“We made it.” He can finally breathe again, looks around at the madness. “You get anything figured out?”

“Tunisian Air is a no. Swiss Air is a no. Alitalia is definitely a no.” She looks over at Anthony and Sebastian, who are arguing with someone at Continental. “Tom and Brie got the last four seats on one of the flights, and no one else has had any luck.”

“Okay.” Jeremy drops his backpack on the floor, nodding to Chris to stay with it. “Let’s get this done.”

They go from counter to counter to counter, leaving Lizzie and Chris behind to guard the bags, and they are told no over and over and over. Scarlett hears the words sold out so many times in so many different languages that she thinks that they will tattoo themselves on the insides of her eyelids. They put their names on every waiting list that they can find, hopeful that something will pan out. There are a couple of flights with one or two seats, but they aren’t allowed to get on a flight without their camera crew, and Scarlett will be damned if she leaves Jeremy behind.

It is South Africa all over again. “What about Athens?” Scarlett asks at the Air France desk. “Marseilles? Anything. We’ll take anything.”

“Today is the twentieth, right?” Jeremy asks as he appears at her elbow, back from another counter. “The next flight to Rome is the twenty-second.”

She groans, wants to put her head down on the counter. “Anyone else got anything?”

“Just T and B.”

Finally, Jeremy manages to charm the girl at Tunisian Air into getting them a flight. How he does it, Scarlett is unsure, even though she stands there and watches the whole thing, but she sees that the girl is as enamored with him as Scarlett is. He plants himself at that desk and he refuses to move, basically begging the girl to help him, do something, anything to get him eight seats on the next flight to Rome, which is basically the only flight to Rome going out of that airport in the next forty-eight hours.

Scarlett hands over her passport with Lizzie’s, passes them to Jeremy who gives them to the girl behind the counter, smiling up at him under her curtain of dark hair. Scarlett doesn’t even care, too damn happy that they are going to make it out of their airport. “How many more seats can you get me?” Jeremy asks once they have eight secured. “Do you have four more?”

Scarlett tilts her head, not sure of what he is doing until he tells her to go find Sebastian and Anthony. She does, bringing them over, well aware of the fact that Anthony is about to snap and hoping that he can keep his mouth shut long enough for them to close this deal. “Yes,” the girl says, tapping away on her computer. “I can get you four more.”

Anthony practically collapses against the counter. “Are you serious?” He turns to Jeremy, clapping him on the back. “Oh my god, thank you.”

“Why?” Sebastian asks. He looks as tired as Scarlett feels. “Why are you doing this?”

Jeremy looks at him evenly, his face not betraying anything. “You took care of my girl when I couldn’t. I owe you one.”

There is a brief panic about thirty minutes before their flight is supposed to board when they realize they are missing one ticket, the one for Hayley. “We’re good, we’re good,” Jeremy says, going back to the counter and leaving Scarlett with Lizzie and Chris. “I’ll go get it.”

It turns into a scrum, everyone crowding around and starting to push and shove to get a ticket. Chris is trying to hold them above everyone’s head until they are sure that they are all there, but people are starting to freak. Finally Jeremy shoves his way back into the circle, snapping at them all to calm down, and Scarlett has never been more attracted to him than she is at that moment.

“They’re gonna hold the plane for us,” Jeremy says, looking at the ticket girl for confirmation. When she nods, he turns back to them. “So everyone calm down.”

They sprint through customs, a couple of the girls who work for the airline leading the way and clearing a path for them. They make it through without a hitch, and Jeremy gives the girl a big kiss on the cheek as she leaves them at the gate for the flight.

“That was hot,” Scarlett says as they get settled into their seats, backpacks stowed safely overhead.

Jeremy grins at her. “Oh, that’s just the beginning of what I can do, sweetheart. Just you wait.”

Finally, with Jeremy by her side and the engine rumbling all around her, she can sleep.

* * *

They land in Rome at eight o’clock, get out of the airport with no problem to go find a train or a taxi or a bus to take them to the Colosseum. “Where do you think everyone else is?” Jeremy asks.

They connected through Zurich. Tom and Brie are going through London, and he has no idea what happened to the lawyers or Michael and Tessa. All he knows is that they are here, and that is all he can ask for at this point. If they have to go through one more hellish airport experience, he may never travel again, even if he does win a million dollars.

“Maybe they’re aren’t getting here until tomorrow,” Chris says hopefully.

“Wouldn’t that be something?”

They all get on the train to head to the Colosseum, and as the hour gets later, they get more and more tired until none of them are talking. Jeremy thinks Lizzie may have actually fallen asleep standing, Chris holding her up. Anthony looks dead inside, staring straight ahead, and Jeremy thinks that he could set a bomb off next to him and he wouldn’t even notice.

They get off the train at the Colosseum station, the city lit up bright around them. It is huge, blocking out the night sky, light coming from within. “Wow,” Chris says, taking a moment to stop and look at it. “The aliens built that.”

Lizzie snorts. “What the hell are you talking about?” Jeremy asks him, not waiting for an answer before he pulls out the picture and studies it to figure out where they are supposed to be going. He looks up at the Colosseum and then back down at the picture a few times, Scarlett leaning over his arm to see it.

“I think we have to go this way,” Jeremy says, pointing to his left and leading them all down the sidewalk. It is Scarlett who spots the yellow and white flag sitting on top of a high wall.

“There!”

They climb up some stone stairs to the flag on the top of the building, sitting there next to a clue box. “Detour,” Sebastian says, first to get there and open a clue.

“It’s just fucking pictures!” Chris says, and Jeremy almost laughs at the fact that he gets more and more frustrated with every clue. There are two pictures, one an entire statue of a man sitting down, the other just a picture of a horse’s hoof. “Find one of these monuments based just on the photograph. Why don’t you find my ass and kiss it?”

“Find this elusive hoof and you may pick up speed,” Lizzie reads. “Look for this foot, and you will find it quickly.” She looks up at Scarlett. “What does this mean? I don’t speak in riddles.”

“Thank you!” Chris says exasperatedly.

Scarlett grabs the clue from her. “The whole statue has gotta be easy to find. I don’t know what the picking up speed part means, but finding the hoof is gonna be harder.”

“So what do we do?” Jeremy asks. Sebastian and Anthony, after talking in low voices to each other for a few moments, have already disappeared, and it is just the four of them again.

“Let’s, uh…” Scarlett is still reading the clue, mouthing the words to herself. “Hours of operation for the foot are nine thirty to six. Hours of operation for the hoof are ten to four. So regardless, we have hours to wait.”

“Let’s try to find the hoof,” Jeremy says. “And if we can’t, then we go to the foot.”

“Deal.”

They take off into the streets of Rome, which unlike Tunisia or South Africa in the middle of the night are full of people. They ask everyone they see, showing them both pictures. Everyone knows the foot, tells them it is a statue at the Palazzo dei Conservatori. Nobody knows the hoof.

Finally, they find someone who does, a little Italian girl who takes a liking to Chris immediately. She tells them that it is at the Vittoriano Monument, and they decide to go there and check it out. As they are in the taxi on the way there, they see Anthony and Sebastian on the street, walking around. Sure enough, when they get to the statue and compare it to the picture, it is the right one.

Jeremy glances at his watch. “Alright,” he says. It isn’t even ten o’clock; they have twelve hours to wait. “Now what?”

Scarlett finds a nearby hotel, manages to negotiate them a discounted room that they all squeeze into. It isn’t much, but it is nicer than some of the places they have stayed in, and they all fall asleep almost instantly.

Jeremy wakes up with his arm curled around Scarlett, sure of the fact that he could wake up to this every morning for the rest of his life and still feel like he has butterflies in his stomach. He doesn’t think that it will ever get old, and even with Chris and Lizzie in the bed next to them, he is certain that they are the only two people in the world.

He is certain that she has lodged herself in his heart and that she will be there forever.

They get to the statue a little before ten o’clock the next morning. They see Sebastian and Anthony coming across the street towards them, lining up behind them. “Morning,” Anthony says, yawning so hugely that he can barely get the word out.

“Good morning,” Lizzie says back.

“I said morning, Liz. There ain’t nothing good about it.”

She snorts. “Speak for yourself, Mackie. At least we aren’t stuck in that airport in Tunisia.”

He points his granola bar at her, taking a huge bite and spewing crumbs everywhere. “You got me there.”

Tom and Brie show up a few minutes later, huffing and puffing and looking a little worse for wear. “We just got in,” she said, and it looks like they haven’t slept in days. “We got stuck in London. It was fucking horrific.”

“Were the lawyers with you? Or Michael and Tessa?” Sebastian asks.

“What?” Tom asks. “No, we thought they were here already.” He turns to Brie. “We’re still in it.”

She ruffles his hair. “I told you. No need to worry.”

There is a six foot tall fence around the monument, and as it gets closer to ten o’clock they all line up in front of it, waiting for it to sink down into the ground. The manager of the monument tells them that they have to wait until the gate is fully down, but they are allowed to run, and Jeremy is fully prepared to beat everyone up the giant set of stairs looming in front of them.

At the last possible second, the lawyers come strolling up. “Where the hell have you guys been?”

“We went through France,” Pratt says. “Got stuck in Lyon. Ended up taking a flight to Milan and then got the train here.” He looks around. “Where are Michael and Tessa?”

Jeremy just shrugs, not wanting to give him any information if he doesn’t have to. “Haven’t seen them.”

“Somehow they got a direct flight here,” Robert says. “We figured they would already be here.”

“Maybe they got here last night,” Chris says. “Which means…”

“We’re all racing not to be last,” Sebastian finishes. “Awesome.”

The gate starts to sink into the ground right at ten o’clock, and the second it is swallowed up Jeremy is across it, hauling ass up the stairs towards the giant statue. He takes the stairs two at a time, not looking back to see where Chris or the girls are. There are so many, one set of staircases followed by a giant flat landing, then another big set and another landing. After a third set of stairs, he is at the time, in the shadow of the monument, and there is a clue box there.

There is a lot of pushing and shoving and jostling going on after everyone catches up to Jeremy. He grabs two clues, shoving his way back through the crowd and grabbing Scarlett and Lizzie on the way down. “Let’s go!” he shouts, like they aren’t right next to him.

Once they’re at the bottom, grabbing the backpacks that they had ditched at the base of the stairs, they read the clues. Jeremy can barely get the words out, his breath coming quickly. “Take a train to Castelfranco Emilia and make your way to the Pagani Auto Factory.”

Chris practically chokes. “Pagani, Jeremy. Pagani.”

“I don’t know what that is.” Jeremy shoves the clue into his backpack. “Enlighten us.”

“They make, like… thirty cars a year. A Roadster is a million five.”

Jeremy stops in his tracks, even as everyone else is racing down the stairs towards them. “Shut the hell up.”

“Deadass. You think we’re gonna get to sit in one?”

“We’ll see when we get there.”

As the clue promised, there is a line of taxis sitting on the street outside the gate, enough for every time, and they get to the train station quickly. The station is huge and gorgeous, giant panes of glass and crystal chandeliers dangling from the ceilings and lots of natural light, nothing like the stuffy airports that they have been stuck in where they feel like they are underground.

They all get there at the same time, and there is nothing any of them can do about it which almost relaxes the mood a little bit. There is still no sight of Michael or Tessa as they take their tickets and power walk towards the train, managing to get on just before the doors close and it pulls away from the station.

“I hope they miss it!” Lizzie says as they slip through the doors, the lawyers sprinting behind them.

“Yeah,” Chris says. “We should be so lucky.”

But in the end, they all get on the train, settle down into seats, and make the trip a couple hundred miles into northern Italy. Lizzie and Chris sit facing forward, Jeremy and Scarlett the only ones who can handle riding backwards, and they play about fifteen games of Bullshit as the train races north. After a while, Lizzie gets up to go talk to some of the passengers, and she comes back bearing news. “We have to get off in Bologna,” she says, her voice low to keep any of the other teams from hearing. “They said the fastest thing to do is take a cab from there.”

So when the train nears the Bologna station, they all make excuses, say that they’re going to go track down some food, and as soon as they’re out of sight, they make a flying leap off the train. “Come on!” Chris shouts. “Over here!” They follow him out of the station and into the sunlight. A couple more taxi rides through the Italian countryside, and they reach Castelfranco Emilia.

“Aqui!” Jeremy says as soon as he sees the Pagani Auto Factory pop up on their left. It is a giant modern glass building, all hard lines and sharp edges and corners, a bunch of flags fluttering proudly at the top. “Aqui, aqui, aqui!” The taxi comes to a quick stop, sending Chris flying into the seat in front of him, but for once he has nothing to whine about.

“Wow,” he says when they push through the glass doors. It is just them and the girls; everyone else must still be on the train. Jeremy waits for Scarlett, slinging an arm over her shoulder as she comes through the doors, and they hang back, letting Chris have his moment. The floor is checked with black and white, so polished that they can see their reflections in it, and the ceiling rises high above them, a glass dome over their heads, sunlight pouring through. In the very center of the room is a shiny red racecar, clean lines and gleaming in the sun. “This is unreal.”

A woman is waiting at the bottom of a winding spiral staircase, dressed all in black, and she hands them a clue. “Thank you,” Chris says almost reverently as he takes it from her. For the past two weeks, they have done everything at a full sprint accompanied by a lot of yelling, but now they are all talking in hushed tones.

“Big surprise,” Chris says once they are outside and he opens the clue. “Roadblock. Choose someone who likes to take things slowly,” he reads, looking up at Jeremy. “I… don’t know what that means.”

“SmartCar,” Scarlett says. “I saw a line of them around the corner.”

“Well.” Chris sighs. “It’s the closest I’ll get to driving a racecar in Italy, I guess, so I’ll do it.”

“Same,” Lizzie says. “You’ve been doing a lot of driving, Scar. I’ll take this one.”

“Go for it, LO.”

Scarlett isn’t wrong. “Drive to your next pit stop, the town square of Sant’agata Bolognese, a small village approximately ten miles away. Your only guide will be a map written entirely in Italian.” Lizzie groans. “That is… just great. You know me with the directions.”

“Well,” Jeremy says cheerfully. “You can’t be any worse than Chris with the directions. At least you have each other.”

“Fight me, Renner.” She turns back to the clue. Chris is already reading the second page, the tips of his ears turning red at the words. “Uh oh.” She glances up at him. “Relax, Evans.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he explodes, and Jeremy is glad that they came outside to do this.

“What?” Scarlett asks, her eyes wide. “What does it say?”

Chris practically spits the words out. “The remaining team member will be driven to the pit stop in style in an Italian sports car doing one hundred and eighty miles an hour.” He drops the clue, glaring at Jeremy. “Every time I get stuck! With the Eiffel Tower and the sewer and now I’m missing out on the million dollar car.”

Jeremy knows that laughing right now would be a really bad idea, so he bites his lip to keep from grinning. “I’m… really sorry?”

“Yeah, I’m sure you are.” Chris stalks over to one of the cars, grabbing the mat on the front seat and spreading it out on top of the car. It is so small that he can use it as a table, and Jeremy has no idea how he is going to fit his long legs in the front seat. He plots out a course with Lizzie, Jeremy and Scarlett looking over their shoulders to make sure that they aren’t confusing east for west, like Chris did about twenty-five times in that godforsaken desert.

“Okay, bye!” Scarlett waves goodbye to Chris and Lizzie as they pull out, one after the other, into the street, the tiny red cars almost comical next to the other cars on the street.

“What’s the over-under on them making it there in one piece?”

“Don’t even joke,” Scarlett says, turning to Jeremy. “I had never met anyone more directionally challenged than LO until the day we met Chris.”

“Well.” Jeremy looks around, realizing suddenly that this is the first time that they have been alone since she left the hotel in Tunisia thirty-six hours before. “There’s a first time for everything.” He is already moving towards her when she snakes her arms around his neck, pulling him down towards her so that she can kiss him. He forgets where they are, that they’re in the middle of a race, that they are supposed to be leaving for the pit stop. All he can think about is how good it felt to have her spread out underneath him, saying his name over and over until he thought his heart might burst.

She pulls back, leaving him chasing after her, and she pats him on the chest once. “Come on, gorgeous.” She looks around. “There will be plenty of time for that later.”

* * *

They get into the racecars, shiny and sleek and silver, their drivers taking turns surging past each other, going faster than Jeremy has ever thought possible. The Italian countryside whips by them, all green and trees and fancy farms, fields as far as they can see, and it is a far cry from the desert he spent hours driving around in just a few days before. On the way, they fly past Lizzie and Chris, who sticks his arm out the window of the Smartcar to wave as they pass.

They wait impatiently in the tiny town square next to Phil and the greeter, an Italian woman with long dark hair and lipstick to match. They jump up and down when they see the Smartcars pull into the square, running to greet them, see that Lizzie and Chris must have paid one of the cab drivers to bring them here which would explain why they aren't waiting for hours.

They stand on the mat as Phil pronounces them teams number one (Jeremy and Chris) and two (Scarlett and Lizzie). They hug, and Jeremy ghosts his lips over Scarlett’s cheek, trying to hold back a little since he sure as hell didn’t at the amphitheater in Tunisia or at the base camp in the desert.

And later that night, Jeremy buries his head in the soft place where Scarlett’s neck curves down to meet her collarbone, muffling his words as he comes because he doesn’t want her to hear him telling her that he loves her. He doesn’t want to scare her away, has no idea what he would do without this beautiful girl by his side. He thinks of her words (“There will be plenty of time for that later.”) as he falls asleep next to her, his bare skin pressed against hers.

What he doesn’t realize yet is that when you’re on top, you have even farther to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gracie's playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6WkrtUIlEIuzhEUvTbkggZ?si=lxuutTaDQNG-nJfh5r-tfw  
> fic playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7vfpk7ZKqu0ZSnYKahc96T?si=lIa2br4DQAmB5AxgBea8eg


	9. but letters stopped can only mean one thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and i left with your promise but letters stopped can only mean one thing  
> and moving on could take so long but looking back it's easy to see  
> at the heart, at the heart, we were just a little lost at the heart  
> / at the heart by the national parks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so.... this is the first chapter of this fic that i have had a really rough time with. i know that it has to do with what happens (i am sorry in advance) but i hated writing every second of it. that being said, i am trying this new thing where i just push forward and don't give up, as i have tended to do in the past.
> 
> please please please let me know what you think because i am so unsure about all of this. 
> 
> all my love xx
> 
> instagram @amandaalexands | tumblr @clintxbarton

It turns out that Michael and Tessa were not ahead of everyone after all. As everyone was sprinting to the train to Castelfranco Emilia, they were there, right behind, and barely missed making it through the doors, putting them an hour behind everyone else. They come flying into the courtyard just a few minutes after the lawyers, and Phil tells them that they are eliminated. There are five teams left now: Jeremy and Chris, the girls, Smackie, Tom and Brie, and the lawyers; they are all bunched up together, can’t shake each other.

When he wakes up in a little village in northern Italy, curled around Scarlett protectively, Jeremy genuinely feels like he is on top of the world. They have come back from being last, sliding into first place. He has a girl whose smile brings him to his knees. He knows that no matter what happens he is going to walk out of this as a better, richer man, even if it’s not with the million dollars. What could go wrong?

Chris ends up answering that question for him.

After they get into the pit stop, everything is perfect. They go to a tiny Italian restaurant and sit at a big table and eat a ton of pasta and drink a lot of wine until they are all a little bit drunk, stumbling back to their rooms. Jeremy is already pulling Scarlett’s clothes off before he even falls into bed next to her, and he thinks that it will never get better than this.

They line up at the pit stop next to the girls at five thirty that morning, ready to head off to wherever they have to go next. It turns out to be a detour, and they have to choose between taking a ride in a glider with the other team member in the towing plane or riding a bike. Either way, they need to get to the train station in the nearby town of Ferrara.

“What do you think?” Jeremy asks the girls.

Scarlett, ever the calm one, lists the pros and cons quickly. “Gliders are first come, first serve, and there’s only one,” she says, looking at her own clue. “But when you get done, they give you a taxi to the train station. There are enough bikes for everyone, but it’s an eight kilometer ride which is…”

“Five miles,” Chris says. “Give or take.” He has been uncharacteristically quiet all morning, and Jeremy knows that something is going on in his head. He just doesn’t know what it is yet. “But I think we gotta do the glider. We’ll be there the first ones there when it opens at nine o’clock. Get through, get it done, on to the next.”

They get in taxis, and Jeremy is about to tell the driver to head to the tiny airstrip, following the girls, but Chris stops him. “Can you hold on a second?” he says to the driver, who apparently understands what he is saying because he pulls over to the side of the square and sits there.

Jeremy looks at him. “What the hell is going on? We gotta go! Sebastian and Anthony are right behind us.”

“Exactly.” Chris nods once. “They are on our asses. We have to use the Fast Forward. Like we talked about.”

“What do you mean like we talked about? That was to get back up in front. We did that. Why use it now?”

Chris sighs exasperatedly. “We’ve been back to back to back for days now. We have to get out ahead. We have to get some sort of cushion, or we’re just going to keep stressing out every single leg trying to keep ourselves one step ahead.”

“But what about-”

“The girls, I know.” Now he looks uncomfortable, not meeting Jeremy’s eye but looking down at his lap. “Listen. I know you’ve got this thing going on with Scarlett, and that’s totally fine, I support it, but I’ve been thinking… Are you prepared to give up a million dollars just to be with her?” Jeremy knows that the answer is resoundingly yes, is prepared to say that, but Chris keeps going. “Because it’s not just yourself you’re screwing out of it. It’s me too.”

There is a long pause. Jeremy knows that at any moment Sebastian and Anthony will come out of the hotel to get their clue and leave. He also knows, deep down, that Chris is right. If it was just him, if he was making this decision alone, there would be no question in his mind that Scarlett is more important than anything else that lies ahead. But Chris is his best friend, his teammate, the person who has been beside him every step of the way, not just for the race but through life.

“Okay,” he says finally, and relief floods Chris’s face. “But what about the girls?”

“They’ll understand,” Chris says. “They know what we’re doing. They know we’re competing. We’ll explain everything when they get to the pit stop.”

Jeremy has a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he nods. “Okay. I trust you.”

They look at the Fast Forward, which reads “beside this castle there lies a moat, to find the Fast Forward hop in a boat.” They show their cab driver the picture of the castle that came in the clue, the only piece of information that they have.

“Oh,” he says, his Italian accent think. “Yes, that is the Castello de Ferrera.”

“Can you take us there?”

“Fifty miles,” he tells them, and Chris nods.

It is just starting to get light when they get there, and they spend the hour drive in complete silence. Jeremy keeps his gaze locked on whatever is passing by out the window, even if he can’t see what it is, because he feels like he is on the verge of a panic attack. His chest is tight and his face feels numb and he has to concentrate on breathing normally.

The worst part of the whole thing is that he knows Scarlett would understand. He knows that if he told her they were going to go for the Fast Forward, she would tell him to do it. Sure, the girls might try to beat them there, but they understand that this whole thing is, at the end of the day, a competition. And instead they are sneaking off in the middle of the night and doing the one thing that he promised her he wouldn’t do again: leaving her behind.

They get out of the cab in front of the castle in Ferrera, the city still and quiet around them. There is a man in a snappy little suit passing by the castle on the street, and Jeremy goes up to him, trying to recall as much high school Spanish as he can because he’s the closest he’s going to get to Italian. “No otro castello… uh… no otro castello para… uh… this one… en Ferrera, si?”

The man seems to understand him just fine, shaking his head. “No,” he says in broken English. “This is it. With water. This is it.”

“Okay.” Jeremy glances at his watch. The girls must be getting to the airstrip in Ferrera right about now, and he wants to go find them, knows that they can’t be far, but he knows Chris isn’t going to let that go down.

As soon as the sun starts to come up, just a few minutes after they get there, they push through the gate, dropping their backpacks on the dock by the moat. The castle is giant and old, made of stone with iron turrets everywhere. The moat is wide, fountains popping up every now and then, and Jeremy has no idea where the hell they are supposed to begin looking for a clue.

They get in the boat, leaving their backpacks on the dock. “Don’t you dare tip us over,” Chris says.

“We’re supposed to be paddling together,” Jeremy says. He is in the back, supposed to be steering but Chris isn’t listening. “No, in sync. You are on the wrong side right now.”

Chris flips his paddle back and forth from one side to the other. “I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”

“We’re going in a circle.” Jeremy tries to straighten them out, but they are drifting all over the place. It is going to take them three hours to find the clue at this point. “Come on, come on.”

“What are you doing back there?”

“Nothing!”

“That’s exactly my point. You’re running us right into the wall.”

They keep paddling around, ducking down to look in tunnels that disappear under the water and craning their necks to look up high in windows. Chris sees it first, the yellow envelope stuck into a windowsill. They bump their way underneath a bridge, Jeremy holding the boat steady as Chris stands up to get it. He has a vague notion to flip the boat over, but he restrains himself.

“Congratulations,” Chris reads once he sits back down. Jeremy wedges his paddle against the wall to keep them in place. “You have found the Fast Forward. Oh shit!” His voice echoes around the empty castle. “We’re going to India!”

“India,” Jeremy sighs. “Here we come.”

* * *

Scarlett lets Lizzie be the one to fly in the glider. She figures she owes her that much after she forced her to jump off a cliff, climb up the Eiffel Tower, and drive around in a Smartcar while she was in a racecar.

They are the first ones to get to the airstrip. She figures that the guys can’t be far behind, so they set up camp at the closed gate, spreading out their sleeping bags and laying down. They are both too keyed up to sleep, so they just talk. Scarlett finally tells Lizzie everything that has been going on with Jeremy, gory details and all, and Lizzie slaps her hands over her ears at a couple of points.

“What?” Scarlett says, snorting. “You wanted to know.”

“I wanted to know, like, all the cute stuff he’s said to you and whatever. I did not want to know how big-”

Scarlett throws a sweater at her.

It gets later and later, and the sun starts to come up, streaks of orange and pink and purple appearing in the sky. The guys still haven’t showed up, but Anthony and Sebastian have. They have set up camp on Scarlett’s other side. “Where are Renner and Evans?” Anthony asks when they pull up. Scarlett just shrugs, trying to keep her face even so that it doesn’t betray how nervous she is.

By nine o’clock when the gates open and they can head into the hanger, Scarlett has moved past worry and set up camp in panic town. “Where are they?” she hisses to Lizzie as they are led out onto the runway.

“I have no idea.” Lizzie shakes her head, and she looks completely calm but Scarlett knows that deep down she has to be freaking out too. She is trying to think of what happened to them: maybe they got lost; maybe they forgot something back at the pit stop; maybe they decided to go to the bikes instead at the last second. She doesn’t like any of those options, can’t imagine that Jeremy wouldn’t tell her what the heck is going on.

They don’t have much time to dwell on it. Lizzie gets strapped into a harness, is muttering to herself about this being exactly like that goddamn cliff in Zambia, and then they are heading towards the planes. Scarlett gets into the tiny prop plane, watch as a cable is hooked up to the front of the glider. She can barely see Lizzie through the glass covering the glider, and then she loses sight of her completely as they leave the ground.

It goes quickly; once they are up to altitude, the cable detaches from the glider and the prop plane turns around. Scarlett waves to Lizzie as they pass; she is holding onto her harness with both hands but she doesn’t look like she is going to throw up, so that’s a plus. The countryside below them is gorgeous, but Scarlett can’t focus on any of that.

She sees the glider flip upside down, the pilot making a big whirlybird in the air, and now Scarlett is a little worried Lizzie might throw up everywhere. Then it is going straight down, nose first towards the ground, and she knows Lizzie is going to kill her when she gets out of there.

The glider straightens out at the last moment, landing smoothly on the runway. The plane puts down next to it, bumping once before coming to a stop. Scarlett jumps over, running up to the glider where the pilot is pushing up the glance. Lizzie is still white-knuckling her harness, has her eyes shut tight. Scarlett reaches in and unbuckles her, not sure that she would be able to do it herself. “Are you okay?” she asks.

“Is it over?” Lizzie squeaks.

“It’s over. It looked really cool, if that matters to you at all.”

“Oh, well, I wouldn’t know.” Lizzie climbs out, stretching her legs and holding onto Scarlett’s hand tightly. “I had my eyes closed the entire time.”

There is a taxi waiting to take them to the train station, and they go, leaving Sebastian and Anthony behind. “We’ll see you soon,” Anthony says as he is getting ready to take his turn in the glider. “We’ve got you.”

Once they get in the taxi, they look at their new clue. “Say good-bye to Italy, and find the Red Fort Market in Delhi, India,” Lizzie says. She starts planning immediately. “We need to get to either Rome or Milan. Do you know which one is closer?”

“Not a clue.” Scarlett is looking out the window. She is certain now that something has happened to the guys, and the thought of knowing that there is nothing she can do, no way to get ahold of them, is making her feel like she’s going to throw up.

“Scar.” Lizzie puts a hand on her leg. “It’s going to be okay. Wherever they are, they’re fine. We’ll see them in India.”

“I know.”

“I need you to get it together,” she says firmly, and Scarlett is reminded of all the days that they had in college where Lizzie had to give Scarlett a come to Jesus talk. There was one when Scarlett wanted to change her major at the last second, another when she considered dropping out of school altogether, a whole lot of them about Colin. There is no one better at calming Scarlett down and bringing her back to earth than Lizzie. “I can’t do this alone.”

“Okay.” She nods, lacing her fingers through Lizzie’s and holding on tight. “I won’t let you down.”

* * *

Jeremy and Chris make the four thousand mile flight from Rome to Agra, flying through the night. They make it to the pit stop, a hotel right across from the Taj Mahal, eleven hours before the second place team arrives, and Jeremy spends a majority those hours trying to convince Cobie to get a message to Bradley. “I’m sorry, Jeremy,” she tells him over and over. “You know I can’t do that.” It seems like she genuinely feels bad for him, but there is nothing else he can do at this point.

The damage is done.

* * *

“Milan is closer by train,” the man at the ticket counter tells them at the train station in Ferrera. “But you’re going to have better luck in Rome. It’s a bigger airport, more international flights.”

“Okay,” Lizzie says. “Four tickets to Rome then please.”

The lawyers are waiting for the train too. “Heads up,” Lizzie mutters to her as they cross the tracks to the platform. “There are Bert and Ernie.”

But Scarlett doesn’t care. She wants answers. “Were Jeremy and Chris with you?” she asks.

It says something about what the look on her face must be that neither of them have a snide comment to make. “No,” Robert says quickly. “Tom and Brie are right behind us. We haven’t see them. They’re not with you?”

“No.” Scarlett shakes her head. “They’re not.”

Tom and Brie come flying up a few seconds later, and they all get on the train when it pulls up. Scarlett spends most of the ride thinking. If Jeremy and Chris didn’t decide to go do the bikes, and if they aren’t stuck behind the girls somewhere (unlikely, since they waited for a couple hours at the airstrip before it opened), then the only other place they could be is at the Fast Forward. Scarlett pulls the clue out of her backpack; the Fast Forward was at some castle in Ferrara. If they went there and found the clue, then they are long gone.

But why would Jeremy do that without telling her? The night that they kissed for the first time, he promised that he would never leave her behind again. If they got that Fast Forward, if they are already on a plane to India, then that sure seems like he is leaving her behind.

As the train speeds along, she gets angrier and angrier, until it is all she can think about. The plan ride to India is no better; for once they have no problems getting a flight. Anthony and Sebastian catch up to them at the airport, the four teams all together again, and she has hours to get in her own head.

India smacks all of that right out of her, along with her will to live.

Another country, another city, another cab driver who doesn’t understand her. She is exhausted and hungry and bone-weary; all she wants to do is lie down and sleep for a week. Instead they speed along crowded streets that smell like garbage, dodging around bicycles and children and a cow or two, on their way to the Red Fort Market.

It is such a contrast to the tiny towns that they just came from in Italy. There are more people crammed into a smaller space than Scarlett has ever seen before, even at that marketplace in Tunisia. People stare at them as they walk by; she knows that between the color of her hair and the camera crew following them, they are a spectacle. Children run up to them, begging for change, and they just keep walking, holding tightly onto each other’s hands.

“Jesus Christ,” Lizzie mutters to Scarlett, as kids holding infants pass by, dirty faces and worn out clothes, stretching out their hands for money. “Jesus fucking Christ.” Scarlett feels like crying, and she can’t believe how drastically their moods have shifted from the morning she woke up in Italy feeling like she could conquer anything. She thinks that Lizzie is crying, but her sunglasses low on her face so that Scarlett can’t see her eyes.

Out of all the places that they have been so far, this is going to be the one that breaks her.

She had decided somewhere around their layover in Copenhagen that she wasn’t going to think about Jeremy anymore. She will see him at the pit stop, will be able to talk to him them, and wasting any time trying to figure out what the hell is going on in his head will only slow her down. But she wishes now, briefly, that he was here. Maybe then they wouldn’t feel so goddamn alone.

They find a big yellow and white flag waiting for them at the marketplace. All of the other teams are already there, save for the lawyers; Scarlett has no clue where they went. “Here, here, here, here,” Anthony says, grabbing a clue out of the box and handing it to her. He stands protectively on one side of her, shielding her from the people running around. “It’s a Roadblock.” After reading the hint (“For a person with a good sense of direction”), Scarlett says she’ll do it. There is no way she is putting Lizzie in yet another situation where she has to try to figure out where the hell she is going.

“We have to take a rickshaw and go find this guy at this stall in the marketplace. We have the exact address, so hopefully it won’t take too long,” Sebastian says. He is pulling off his backpack, dropping it at Anthony’s feet. Scarlett does the same. “Come on.”

They are on those rickshaws for hours. It is the most hellish experience of Scarlett’s life. It would have been even if Jeremy was right here next to her. The streets are claustrophobic. Their rickshaw drivers are not listening to them. People are pressing so close that she thinks she may pass out, and they point to the cameras and her hair, tugging on her clothes as she passes. It is pure chaos.

After they disappear into the crowded marketplace, leaving Anthony and Lizzie behind, they drive through the crowded streets and alleys, taking tight corners and swerving around people. Their driver stops a lot, talking to people in a language that Scarlett would never be able to understand. After about an hour, Sebastian starts raising his voice, but even then no one is listening to them. She says Tom and Pratt criss-crossing by them, both of them having the same problems.

She has never felt more helpless in her life.

Things only get worse after they find the man and get their next clue, which is a piece of paper telling them to go to the Taj Khema Hotel. On the way back to the square where they left their teammates, Scarlett loses Sebastian completely. His rickshaw driver splits off down an alley, and even as they are yelling that they have to stay together, he disappears.

She makes it back to Lizzie and everyone else is gone. Lizzie is jumping up and down, starts screaming as soon as she sees her pop out the entrance of the marketplace, and she runs towards her, hugging her tightly. “Oh my God,” Lizzie says. “What happened?”

“It was…” Scarlett knows she is pale, and she can barely get any words out. “It was fucking hell, LO. It was the fifth circle of hell in there.”

“Where are we going?”

“Taj Khema Hotel.”

“Okay.” Lizzie looks around determinedly. “Let’s find out where that is.”

But nobody knows. They sit in the goddamned taxi, people swarming around, kids reaching in the windows, and they both cry. They are there for at least another hour, long after everyone else has left. People try to get in the taxi, Lizzie screaming at them, and their driver refuses to leave for some reason.

“All I’m seeing is the word eliminated,” Scarlett says through her tears at one point, and it is a testament to how shitty they feel that Lizzie doesn’t even try to disagree with her. “I don’t want to go home. I’m not ready to go home.” Lizzie is asking every single person she sees, dozens and dozens of them, if they know where the Taj Khema Hotel is.

“Do you think it’s by the Taj Mahal?” Scarlett asks. Their driver snaps the word no back at them. Even if they knew where it was, they wouldn’t be able to move, so many people crowded around their cars and hanging on the windows and trying to open the doors.

Finally, after hours in that dusty square, someone says the word Agra. The driver turns around, says something that they don’t understand. “Agra?”

“What?” Scarlett whips around. “What’s going on?”

“It is in Agra,” the driver says. “Taj Mahal.”

“Exactly like she said!” Lizzie practically screeches. “My teammate said that an hour ago! Taj fucking Mahal!”

They pull out of the square, people still trailing behind their car. It is almost nighttime at this point; they have been doing this for hours. But they get on the road, finally moving. “All we can do is sit back and hope that we get there before somebody else,” Lizzie says to the camera. Tear tracks streak down her face, cutting through the dust. She slings her arm around Scarlett’s shoulder, holding onto her for dear life. “And if not, well… we gave it one hell of a try.”

* * *

The second team, Anthony and Sebastian, get in eleven hours after Jeremy and Chris. Jeremy didn’t sleep much, couldn’t turn off his brain, and they are out waiting by the pit stop. Jeremy is hoping against hope that Scarlett and Lizzie get there before they have to leave because he is seriously considering refusing to go, planting himself next to that mat until he seems them.

After taking one look at Anthony and Sebastian, Jeremy knows that whatever they have just been through was horrific. They have dirt-stained bandanas wrapped around their faces, dark circles under their eyes, and Sebastian’s voice is completely gone.

“What happened?” Chris demands.

Jeremy cuts him off. “Scarlett and Lizzie. Are they okay?”

“We were with them,” Anthony says hoarsely. “Seb stayed with Scarlett the whole time during the Roadblock, but then they got separated.” Jeremy’s mind starts racing. “We tried, brother,” Anthony says. “We tried.”

Phil pronounces them team number two, and shock is painted across their faces. “Wait, what? We’re not last? Where the hell is everyone else?” Sebastian manages to croak out.

“We got lost,” Anthony tells them. “We made it out of the marketplace, but our driver said he knew where he was going and he most certainly did not. We ended up at some police station with barbed wire and a lot of guys with machine guns who finally told us where to go.”

A half hour later, Tom and Brie and the lawyers come running up. The lawyers beat them to the mat by a couple seconds, and it takes everything that Jeremy has in him not to sink to his knees. The four of them have horrific stories too, stories that mirror Anthony’s. The cab driver that Tom and Brie had tried to shake them down for about one hundred American dollars. They managed to get into another cab, but they lost at least an hour there. The lawyers’ driver refused to go any further at one point, and they sat on the side of the road arguing with him for at least thirty minutes.

Jeremy doesn’t care about any of it. He knows he made a giant mistake.

Scarlett and Lizzie come into camp at eight o’clock at night, just as Jeremy and Chris are supposed to be leaving. They know that they are eliminated; everyone is sitting up waiting for them. Jeremy drops his backpack on the ground as her eyes lock on his, and he swallows hard. She doesn’t say anything, drops her gaze immediately as she trudges dejectedly onto the mat.

This is it, and he can’t believe that it is ending like this.

Except it’s not ending.

Phil informs the girls, who can barely even look at him, that this is the first of a few non-elimination legs. Lizzie’s head pops up. “What?” she says, her voice catching. “What does that mean?”

“You two are still in the race,” Phil says, biting back a smile at the looks on their faces.

“Still in the race,” Lizzie says, turning the words over and over like she doesn’t understand them, which she may not after the day that they just had. “We’re not out.”

“You’re not out,” Phil confirms.

After everyone scatters to their rooms to shower and fall into bed, Lizzie turns to Chris, smacking him across the chest with a closed fist. “What the fuck?” she says. “Where the hell did you guys go?”

“Scar,” Jeremy says, his voice low, but she just stares at her shoes. “Scar, I didn’t-”

“You better go,” she says, looking up at him. Cobie is there, looking at her watch so that she can tell them exactly when it is five minutes after eight. “You don’t want to blow your lead.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me.”

“Jeremy,” she says. “There’s nothing to say. It’s a race. You’ve made that pretty clear.” Just like that, she walks away from him, like the past two weeks haven’t meant anything to her. And the worst part of all of it is that he knows that it is entirely his fault.

It didn't have to be like this.


	10. please don't come if you're not gonna run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> staring out the window to the dark, hoping for a light, waiting for a spark  
> i was searching high and low, esperanca where'd you go  
> i'll meet you in the mile high city at dusk, please don't come if you're not gonna run  
> oh for some things you just gotta fight  
> i been in the ring too many times  
> don't let me fall  
> / esperanca by the national parks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it was a fricking JOURNEY to get here. i lost all motivation for some reason, but i'm back now and hopefully better than ever! we've got four more chapters left, and emily & gracie have had to put up with a lot of ridiculous texts from me trying to talk out the ending to figure out what the hell happens. i think i may have it figured out so stay tuned for more insanity.
> 
> as always, i cannot properly express how grateful i am to everyone reading the shitshow that this has become. y'all are truly worth a whole lot more than a million dollars.
> 
> insta: @amandaalexands | tumblr: @clintxbarton

The twelve hour lead that they have on the other teams is blown almost immediately.

Jeremy can’t concentrate at all. He doesn’t see how he is supposed to jump back into the race when he knows that for the entire next leg, all he is going to be thinking about is the look on Scarlett’s face when he was trying to talk to her, a mix of hurt and betrayal. He supposes it’s better than indifference, but that doesn’t mean anything to him right now.

“Dude,” Chris says after Scarlett and Lizzie go over the hill, taking the winding path down to the hotel. “We gotta go.”

Jeremy just nods, keeping his eyes on the place where Scarlett disappeared.

“Go ahead,” Cobie says, tapping her watch face and waiting for them to open the clue before she takes off. The sun is rising behind the Taj Mahal just across the street, and in any other scenario Jeremy would be awestruck. But he is beyond caring about anything.

The only instruction the clue gives them is to find a box on the grounds of the Taj Mahal. When they landed at the airport in New Delhi, Jeremy bought a book about India, and he spent a lot of time reading it yesterday when he was trying to distract himself from the fact that he left Scarlett behind. He knows from that book that the Taj Mahal sits on forty-two acres of land, and finding a random box sitting somewhere is not going to be easy.

He also knows that the Taj Mahal doesn’t open until six o’clock in the morning, just an hour before Sebastian and Anthony are set to leave. There goes that lead.

Jeremy is unbelievably angry at Chris, even though he knows it’s not Chris’s fault. But the whole point of using the Fast Forward was to get ahead, and now they are barely going to have an edge. If he blew his relationship with Scarlett for nothing, he will never forgive himself. He doesn’t think he would forgive himself anyways, not even if using that Fast Forward dropped a million dollars directly into his hands. He doesn’t fucking want it. Not like this.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Chris says when he sees the hours of operation written on the clue, next to the words “Absolutely no running inside the Taj grounds.” “That’s great,” he says. “We’ve got an hour lead.”

Jeremy shakes his head. “Whatever. Let’s just go.”

As they are walking down the hill, Chris asks him how much money is in the envelope. Jeremy realizes he didn’t see any, opens it again and checks both pockets. “There’s nothing.”

“That’s… a problem.”

They walk the few blocks down the street to the Taj Mahal, making their way around it until they find the main entrance. A man dressed in a military uniform comes up, getting very close to Jeremy, and he is really not in the mood. “It opens at six,” he says. “Come back then.”

“Gladly,” Jeremy says, rolling his eyes and walking back down the street.

“Wait!” Chris runs to catch up to him, overtaking him quickly. “Where are you going?”

“Back to the pit stop,” Jeremy says shortly. “Where else are we gonna go?”

“Yeah.” Chris considers this. “I guess you’re right. Are you gonna talk to Scar?”

Jeremy nods tightly. He doesn’t want to discuss this; he just wants to get back to his girl, even if she’s not his girl anymore. He leaves Chris in the lobby of the hotel after promising that he’ll try to send Lizzie down to meet him, and he browbeats Bradley into telling him which room the girls are in. He finds himself standing in front of the door, taking a deep breath and trying to work up the courage to knock on it.

Before he can, the door bursts open and Lizzie practically bowls him over, letting out a shriek that scares him, herself, and Scarlett in the room behind her. She slams the door shut behind her before Jeremy can push past her. “What are you doing here?” she hisses. “You’re supposed to be gone.”

“Went and came back,” he says, her heart pounding in his chest, both from being scared by Lizzie and because he is nervous. “Next clue is at the Taj Mahal. Doesn’t open until six.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Why are you telling me this?”

He clears his throat. “How mad is she?”

“Pissed.”

“Can I…” He gestures towards the door, taking a step towards it, but Lizzie slides in front of him, wedging herself between him and the handle.

“No,” Lizzie says. “You cannot.”

Jeremy sighs. He figured he was going to have to talk his way into the room; he just figured it would be with Scarlett and not Lizzie. “Look,” he says. “Chris wants to see you. He’s waiting in the lobby.” He sees her hesitating. “If Scarlett doesn’t want to see me, then I promise I will leave. But you have to let me try. You know… how I feel. Please, Liz.”

The combination of the plea to her humanity and the knowledge that Chris is waiting for her finally cause her to roll her eyes at him, stepping out of the way. “Okay,” she says, patting him on the shoulder once. “Good luck.” He hears her mutter “you’re gonna need it” under her breath as she walks off down the hall.

He knocks on the door three times, waits for Scarlett to come open it. She knows he’s out here, so he considers it a win that she has even opened the door. It looks like she just got out of the shower, her hair wet and t-shirt slipping over one shoulder and shorts hanging low on her hips. It takes everything he has in him to stop himself from reaching out towards her.

“What?” she asks. Jeremy almost wishes that she would sound mad. Instead, it’s just disappointment coursing through her words. “What do you want?”

He swallows. “Can I talk to you?”

She leans against the door frame, crossing her arms. “Go ahead. Talk.”

Jeremy looks around the hall. “Can we do it inside?”

She plants a hand on her hip. “Name one good reason I should let you in.”

He takes a deep breath. This isn’t where he wanted to say this, not how he saw the moment going. He wanted to tell her on top of a mountain or in front of the Northern lights or in the middle of the ocean or in the middle of a giant city where no one knows her name. He thinks back to the places they have been so far, thinks that he could have said it seconds before he jumped off a cliff, in the middle of a safari, at the top of the Eiffel Tower, or at the coliseum in Tunisia. He should have said it on top of that cliff in France, when they were stuck on that cruiseliner for twenty-four hours, after they got lost in the desert. But he is going to say it right here instead before he loses the chance again.

“Because, Scar.” Jeremy clears his throat. “I’m in love with you.”

* * *

Jeremy had told her after he showed up at that base camp in the Sahara Desert that he would never leave her. He promised her that he would never let her go. He said that he would be with her to the end. He said it to her when he was standing in front of her in the sand when he thought he was eliminated. He said it to her when they got to the hotel in Gabes. He said it was kissing her, touching her, inside her.

She told him about Colin. She told him that she has trust issues, that she is used to people abandoning her. She told him that she expects people to leave because that’s what everyone has done to her in the past. She didn’t think Jeremy would do the same thing until he did.

As she was sitting on the plane going to India and the rickshaw in the middle of the marketplace or the van in the square surrounded by people, she thinks about Jeremy. She thinks that maybe she doesn’t really know who she is. Sure, they’ve spent every day together for a couple of weeks, but maybe all they really had was one great night. Maybe that’s all it was ever meant to be.

But now he is standing in front of her telling her that he is in love with her like it is nothing, like it isn’t knocking the breath out of her where she stands.

“What?” She takes a couple of steps backwards, the words damn near knocking her over. Jeremy takes that moment to step forward, reaching out to hold onto both of her arms and pushing her gently backwards, kicking the door shut with a slam. “What do you mean you’re in love with me?”

“Scar. I can stand here all day and tell you how sorry I am, how much I fucked up, how much I wish I could it back. And I will. I’ll tell you that every for the rest of our… for the rest of the race.” He stumbles over his words, but Scarlett is still too stuck on the love part to really think about it. “But the bottom line is that I love you. And I will keep on loving you every fucking day even if you don’t feel the same way.”

“Jeremy,” she says, her voice small. “It’s been two and a half weeks.”

“So what?” He is firm. “So fucking what? We have done more in two and a half weeks than most couples do in two and a half years.”

She doesn’t say anything because she can’t. If there was ever any doubt in her mind that she feels something for Jeremy that is bigger than she has ever felt before, it was wiped away the second she thought he was lost in the desert. But admitting that means making herself vulnerable, and after the events of the last couple of days, she can’t get herself to speak.

“Scarlett.” He pushes her down to sit on the edge of the bed, dropping down so that he is eye level with her. “I’m crazy about you. I don’t…” He takes a deep breath, revealing his ace. “I don’t care about the race or the money. This is bigger than that. I would give it all up for you.”

“I…” Scarlett squeaks out. She can’t comprehend what is happening right now. Maybe she’s not even awake. Maybe she finally passed out from exhaustion and this is all just some weird fever dream. Maybe she’ll wake up in a few hours and realize it was all just wishful thinking. But then Jeremy reaches towards her, brushing his hands over her thighs as he slides them up to her waist, and she knows this is real.

“I think you feel the same way about me,” he says, looking at her intently. “And I promise I will do whatever it takes for you to trust me again.”

“How can I do that?” she manages to say.

“I don’t know.” He looks down, his Seattle Fire Department baseball hat shading his eyes, and she feels her heart to sink. But then he looks back up at her. “But I will never stop trying to show you.”

Scarlett feels something burst in her chest. She thinks about Colin, about all the times he made her feel like she wasn’t good enough, that she didn’t deserve good things. She thinks about Lizzie and the fact that she has been there for Scarlett through everything, thick and thin, good and bad, the one person she has always been able to count on no matter what. She thinks about Jeremy, the earnestness in his eyes and the feeling of his hands around her waist and the words he is repeating over and over until they are tattooed on her brain. And she thinks about herself, about the fact that she came out here to have experiences, and she is sure as hell going to have them, even if they are different from anything she expected.

So she decides to leap, just like they did off that damn cliff in Zambia. She decides to trust, because they can call mountains eternal, but in the course of time they will crumble and stars will fall from the sky, and she doesn’t want to waste a second of the time they may have left. For the first time in her life, she is going to take the chance while it is right in front of her. If the race taught her anything, it is that she can’t wait around for things to happen to her.

“Fuck,” she says, reaching forward and cupping his face, her hands trembling, and she wishes that she could be more coherent but she is exhausted and hungry and emotionally weary. “I love you too.”

Every muscle in Jeremy’s body seems to reach out towards her. He is already opening his mouth to keep pleading his case, and he stops abruptly. “And I - wait. What?”

“I love you too,” she says. “You fucking moron.”

* * *

He does not expect her to forgive him.

Jeremy thought he was going to have to beg. He was fully prepared to grovel. He knew that he was ready to tell Scarlett how he felt about her. But then she flips the script on him by not only forgiving him but telling him that she loves him too, and his heart feels like it is falling off that cliff again.

He has already started his next sentence when she drops the bomb on him, and suddenly he can’t speak. All of the carefully rehearsed words that he spent hours thinking about before she rolled up to the pit stop go flying out of his head. “And I…” He shakes his head, sure that he has heard her wrong. “Wait. What?”

“I love you too, you fucking moron,” Scarlett says, and there is a hint of a smile behind her eyes. He can see that she is exhausted, so he just means to kiss her and then sit with her while she sleeps. It turns into more than that, and thirty minutes later he is breathing hard, sweat beading up on his forehead, and she is tucked underneath his arm, her head on his shoulder.

“We need ground rules,” Scarlett says.

Jeremy would agree to anything she said at this moment. “Like what?”

“Like…” She takes a deep breath; he can feel it against his side. “Like that we remember this is a competition.”

“What does that mean?”

She rolls half on top of him, pillowing her chin on her fist and looking at him. “We’re getting down to it now. There’s five teams left. So when it’s time to just go for it, I say we go for it.”

“Scar, I don’t want to leave you.”

“I don’t want to leave you either,” she says, but her voice is firm and he knows that she has thought about this. “But we aren’t leaving each other. We’ll be… something long after this is over. So we’ve gotta play this out.”

Jeremy nods, knows that she is right. He knows that there is no way in hell he is going anywhere, and even if they live on complete opposite coasts, all the forces in heaven and hell couldn’t drag him away from her. “So what does that look like?”

“We’ll stick together as much as we can if LO and I catch up to you. But if it comes down to a situation where you feel like you can get ahead by doing something different, then do it. And we’ll do the same.”

“So you don’t want us to wait for you tomorrow morning?”

“Absolutely not,” she says. “We’ll catch up. I promise.”

“Okay, Scarlett.” Jeremy can see her eyelids starting to drift shut, and she rolls back over, burying her face in his neck. He brushes her hair back as she falls asleep, and he doesn’t move for the next few hours, wanting to memorize this moment so that he will have it forever.

It is a different feeling in his chest when he walks out of that room at five forty-five. He leaves Scarlett sleeping, kisses her forehead and takes an extra second to look at her before he lets himself out. He has no idea where Chris is, but he finds him standing in the lobby waiting for him, exactly where Jeremy left him almost ten hours before.

“Tell me you haven’t been in this exact same spot all night.”

“Nah, brother,” Chris says, and if Jeremy didn’t know any better, he would think Chris is blushing. “I was with Liz.”

“Get everything worked out?”

“Yeah. You?”

Jeremy grins. “Yes.”

“Good.” Chris leads them out of the lobby. “Then let’s go win a million dollars.”

They get to the Taj Mahal right as it is opening, the sun just starting to rise behind the dome. They take exactly zero time to look around and appreciate it, now only forty-five minutes separating them from Sebastian and Anthony. The rest of the teams are stacked up close behind them, the lawyers, then Tom and Brie, then the girls. They will all be gone from the pit stop by eight o’clock.

They have a brief argument about whether to walk the perimeter of the grounds or to go right down the middle. Chris thinks searching in the center will be a waste of time, that it is too obvious, but Jeremy wins out. And sure enough, the clue is sitting in a box on a bench next to a giant water feature sparkling in the sun. “Alright, here we go.”

“Look for the next route marker in a window on the facade of the Palace of the Winds in Jaipur,” Chris says, reading over his shoulder. “Make your way inside and up to the flag. How far is Jaipur?”

“Do I look like I was raised in India?” Jeremy shoves the clue into his backpack. “Let’s get back to the taxi.”

“Man,” Chris says, walking backwards and looking at the palace. “That was some woman to make a man build that thing for her.” He looks at Jeremy. “You would do it for Scarlett, I bet.”

Jeremy rolls his eyes. “You wanna do this now? Let’s go!”

They have no idea about the chaos happening with the other teams after they leave the Taj Mahal. They don’t know that the frat brothers’ taxi refuses to start and that they decide to just walk from the hotel. They don’t know that the lawyers’ cab driver takes them in the opposite direction of the Taj Mahal for a couple of miles. They don’t know that Tom and Brie manage to find the clue at the palace and then promptly lose it on their way out, wasting at least fifteen minutes looking for it. They don’t know that the girls are right back in it.

Their cab driver tells them that Jaipur is a hundred and fifty miles away, a six hour drive. They have little to no money, deciding to travel by bus to try and save what they do have left. It’s not ideal: the bus is going to be slower than molasses, but they don’t really have any better options, especially after they had to buy tickets to get into the Taj Mahal. Their only saving grace at this point is that no one has any money.

There is a bus leaving for Jaipur every half hour, so they get on one and leave almost immediately. It is a long, uncomfortable, dusty, noisy six hours, and Jeremy spends the entirety of it wishing Scarlett was next to him.

“We are trying to keep our expectations low,” Chris says to the camera at one point. “We didn’t expect the Fast Forward to give us much of a lead, but then it did and now we are right back to where we started. So that really… it’s disappointing.”

Don asks him a question about Lizzie, and Jeremy has to hide his snort.

“Everyone left is a concern,” Chris says, skirting the question like he has had professional media training or something. “There aren’t many teams now, and every single person is incredibly smart and competitive and tough. I think that if they don’t shoot themselves in the foot, this could be a five-way race for first place.”

Jeremy pulls out the money to count it. “Thirty seven hundred rupees,” he says, doing the math in his head as quickly as possible. “That’s like… fifty bucks, give or take some change.”

“We’re screwed.”

Jeremy nods. “Screwed.”

When they get to the Palace of the Winds, a giant, rosy pink, sandstone building in the middle of Jaipur, the yellow and white flag is fluttering from a window about sixty feet off the ground. “More stairs,” Chris groans as the bus dumps them in the middle of the square. “Always more stairs.”

His mood shifts when they reach the clue box. “You’re gonna shit your pants, Evans,” Jeremy says.

“What is it?” Chris tries to look over his shoulder, but Jeremy shields the clue from him, grinning. “Maxwell?”

“No, you dumb fuck. Elephants.”

Their Detour task is to find a holy man at one of two places: the Amber Fort or the Jal Mahal water palace. It is a no-brainer that they are going to the Amber Fort, since that is the option that will get Chris on the back of an elephant and hopefully shut him up for the rest of the leg. Plus there is no way in hell Jeremy is getting in another boat with Chris after their near disaster at the castle in Italy. As they take a taxi out of the center of the city towards the Amber Fort, people are riding elephants like they are cars right down the middle of the street, and Jeremy thinks that Chris may lose his damn mind.

The Amber Fort is a big castle sitting high on a hill, and as they pull up to the bottom of it they can see a steep path winding its way up. They wait for their crew to get set up, climbing a set of stairs and waiting patiently as the elephant is brought around. The look Chris has on his face when they are finally allowed to get on makes Jeremy laugh so hard he thinks he might actually throw up.

“Can you fucking believe this?” Chris says as the elephant lumbers up the hill. It takes a long time, but they are sitting in what is essentially a large basket full of pillows, the elephant handler right between the elephant’s ears, and they can see the countryside stretching out around for them miles the higher up they get.

“This is wild, brother.”

Once they get to the top of the hill, they wander around the palace for a little while. There are even more cars and people up there, and Chris is saying “Wise man? Wise man?” to everyone he sees. Jeremy makes his way up the stone steps, practically falling over the last one when he trips, and seated on the ground inside is a very small, very old man dressed in an orange robe with a long white beard. He stands up when he sees them come in and bows, and they bow back, waiting for him to hand them a clue.

“India is a place of religious diversity,” Jeremy reads. “Witness this first hand at the Karni Mata Temple at Deshnoke.” They turn to leave. “Let me tell you,” Jeremy says as they race back down the steps of the temple. “He is wise because he’s been around forever.”

“He is three days older than kerosene, that guy.”

* * *

Rats.

That’s what the Karni Mata Temple was built to worship: rats.

Scarlett is shoeless in an Indian temple, holding tightly onto the hand of a little boy in front of her, and all around her are people packed in so close that she can barely take a step. Outnumbering the people are rats, hundreds or maybe even thousands. They are scurrying across the floor, eating what looks like cornmeal out of bowls on the floor, disappearing down hallways. There are so many in some places that it looks like the floor itself is moving, and they have been instructed not to pick their feet up when they walk.

Scarlett is trying to be respectful, but the urge to panic is bubbling up in her chest.

They caught up to Jeremy and Chris and the lawyers at the train station. Only two trains go to Bikaner per day, six hours apart, and thankfully they managed to get to the Palace of the Winds quickly after they bribed a cab driver to take them to Jaipur from the Taj Mahal for the small amount of money they could spare, saving them from a bus trip and putting them ahead of some of the other teams. They breezed through the Detour, riding an elephant up to the Amber Fort, and they arrive at the train station to see Jeremy and Chris sacked out on the floor.

“Holy shit!” Jeremy says, jumping up when he sees them. Chris is passed out cold, a t-shirt slung over his face. “You made it!”

“I told you we would,” Scarlett says triumphantly. She had a long talk with Lizzie on that six hour car trip from the Taj Mahal to Jaipur about everything that happened, and they decided that they would split off from the boys whenever necessary, echoing Scarlett’s conversation with Jeremy. Now that they have a concrete plan, Scarlett is more ready than ever to fight for first.

The four of them play Uno for hours on the train, switching to Bullshit when Lizzie hits Jeremy with four plus fours in a row and he damn near flips the table. “Come on,” Chris says, smirk on his face as he shoves all the Uno cards back into the box. “Why can’t we play strip poker? Just once?”

“Because, Evans.” Scarlett pulls the regular playing cards out of her bag, shuffling them as she talks. “We’re not in college anymore.”

“Yeah, well,” he mumbles. “Some of us aren’t so far removed.”

He loses at Bullshit five games in a row before he gives up, still mumbling about strip poker. They walk the train after that, seeing that the frat brothers and Tom and Brie aren’t on it. “There’s no way that they got ahead of you right?” Jeremy asks.

“We left them back at the hotel,” Scarlett says. “Car trouble and shit. I think we’re out in front.”

They end up trying to catch a nap in one of the sleeping cars as the train races on through the night, but it is hot and cramped and there is barely enough room on the bunk for one person to sleep without rolling off the side. Eventually, they make a nest in between the bunks out of every sleeping bag and travel pillow and backpack they have at their disposal, taking turns sleeping while the others sit up and talk.

It is pitch black by the time they get to the temple, Jeremy and Scarlett offering to do the Roadblock after the clue reads “put on some extra socks.” They can’t see into the temple, people crowded outside as far as they can see, but there are strings of what look like Christmas lights draped off the top, lighting up the courtyard festively.

“You’re not gonna like this, Scar,” Lizzie says, reading the clue out loud after Jeremy and Scarlett volunteer. “You have to find the clue somewhere inside the labyrinth of the temple which is overrun with rats that are considered sacred.”

“Rats,” Scarlett says, pausing in the act of unstrapping her backpack. “Rats, like… real rats.”

“No, rats like ferrets. Yes, rats.”

They take their shoes off, tuck their pants into their socks, and push their way inside, knowing that they’ve come too far now to let a few rodents turn them back. Jeremy keeps one arm protectively around Scarlett’s waist, a little boy who took a liking to her hair leading her through the maze of hallways and chambers and people. The lawyers split off from them at the entrance to the temple, so it is just Jeremy, Scarlett, this little boy, their camera crews, a couple hundred people, and a thousand rats.

Jeremy’s arm tightens around her waist as he slides sideways to avoid stepping on a rat or ten. “I hate this,” he mutters under his breath, just loud enough for Scarlett to hear.

“How are you gonna come visit me in New York if you can’t handle a couple of rats?”

“You want me to visit you?”

“Of course.”

“Well,” Jeremy says, looking at her like she is the only person in the world. “I’ll do anything for you, Scar.” She could kiss him right then and there, but she doesn’t, following the little boy into a big open room, full of more people and more rats. In the middle of the room, nestled in a bowl full of corn kernels swarmed by rats, is a big urn with a yellow flag on it.

They race to the pit stop in Bikaner, blowing the rest of their money on a couple of taxis. Scarlett and Lizzie manage to sweet talk their driver into going faster and taking a couple of shortcuts, beating Jeremy and Chris to the mat by a couple of minutes. They are second, coming in right after the lawyers, a small Indian woman putting strings of flowers around their necks.

Jeremy and Chris come running up after them, hitting the mat at exactly five o’clock in the morning. Phil informs them that they have traveled twenty-one thousand miles so far, telling them that the hardest legs of the race are yet to come. Scarlett doesn’t know how that is possible, not after the airport in South Africa and the marketplace in India and the long bus rides and train rides and plane trips. She can’t fathom how it can get any more difficult.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7vfpk7ZKqu0ZSnYKahc96T?si=fa_csGTpRxiFnnqCEOVD5A


	11. what i see in you i hope you find in me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you are gold, you are all i see  
> you are aurum scarce and meant for kings  
> and i will wait if it's time you need  
> what i see in you i hope you find in me  
> / you are gold by the national parks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> somehow these four idiots are still in the race, although it is going to be complete nincompoopery from here on out, so buckle up.
> 
> @ emily: you are my shining star with more patience than a goddamn saint. thank you for once again talking through the logistics and believing in me more than any one person should. one direction wrote drag me down about you.
> 
> thank you for reading, commenting, messaging, and loving these four absolute buffoons as much as i do!
> 
> insta: @amandaalexands | tumblr: @clintxbarton

As they get closer and closer to the finish line, Jeremy realizes how badly he actually wants to win. He came into this thing ultra-competitive, thinking that there was no chance in hell that they were going to lose, and then he met Scarlett and everything changed. But now, with the finish line damn near in sight and Scarlett locked down, he wants it. He already has some plans burrowing their way into the back of his brain, plans to buy a cabin in the woods and bring Scarlett out to live with him. Not that he’s told Scarlett any of that; he won’t, until the million dollars is in his hand.

There were five teams left at the start of the last leg, and at the start of this one there are still five teams. Tom and Brie came rolling in last, looking entirely defeated. They had missed the train to Bikaner, stuck on the second one six hours after the first. Anthony barely beat Brie to the clue in the temple, and it was a close race for second to last. However, as Phil informed them triumphantly, it was another non-elimination leg, and they are still in it.

Jeremy wakes up next to Scarlett in their hotel just across a grassy field from the pit stop, the Laxmi Niwas Palace. They stayed up for a while once they made it to the mat to watch the sun rise and eat as much as they could stomach before falling into bed. It is a beautiful day, the sun high in the sky above them but not too hot as they pack up and trudge out to the pit stop.

They are worn down, to say the very least. Even the lawyers have less and less to say as the legs fly by. It is hard to believe that they have already been out here for weeks, even though Jeremy can’t really remember anything of what his life back home was like. He can’t imagine that he lived for thirty years without Scarlett.

Although Jeremy is excited to get out of India and move on to another country (or another shitshow, if past performance is any indication of what is to come), he can barely muster the energy to be excited when their clue directs them to find a flight to Bangkok, Thailand and make their way to the Temple of Dawn. Thankfully, Lizzie has enough energy for the four of them, punching Chris in the arm so hard that Jeremy thinks it may start World War Three.

“Ow!” Chris glares at her. “What the fuck was that for?”

“Thailand!” She shoves his clue at him. “We’re going to Thailand!”

“You know what the capital of Thailand is?” Jeremy asks Chris, hitting him in the balls when he answers Bangkok.

“What the fuck, Renner?” he asks, doubling over. Jeremy can see Hayley turn around, her shoulders shaking with laughter. “What did I ever do to you?”

Jeremy considers this. “You chose to exist in my world,” he says. “That’s good enough for me.”

It is more than two thousand miles from the airport in New Delhi to Bangkok, and Jeremy dreads the prospect of trying to find more flights. There hasn’t been one leg yet where the seats have come easy. They take the train from Bikaner to New Delhi, three hundred miles and ten hours of sitting and playing cards and pretending like they’re going to go catch some sleep instead of have sex in a bunk bed in one of the sleeping cars. Chris and Lizzie know exactly what’s going on, but they let it slide.

What is the point, Jeremy thinks, of even getting a Fast Forward if the airport or the Taj Mahal operating hours are going to act as one big equalizer anyways. Even so, he knows he needs to tell Scarlett that they have to get the Fast Forward for this leg, which is located at the Temple of the Reclining Buddha in Bangkok.

“Yeah,” she tells him as they are sprawled out on the dingy floor of the airport, letting Chris and Lizzie take the reins on finding a flight. “I’ve been thinking that.”

“We’ve used ours,” he says, glossing over that fact as quickly as he can. “And so have the lawyers. Maybe Tom and Brie, I’m not sure.”

“Okay,” she says. “We’ll try it. But you’ve gotta assume that Smackie is gonna go for it too.”

“So beat them,” Jeremy says. “You gotta.”

Miraculously, they all get flights out with little to no trouble. Chris charms the girl behind the counter into getting them seats at the front of the plane, insuring that they will be the first ones off, sending the girls on their way to the Fast Forward as quickly as possible while Jeremy and Chris split off and head to the Temple of Dawn.

They land in Bangkok at six thirty in the evening, almost forty-eight hours after they left the pit stop in Bikaner. They slept on the train and in the airport and on the plane, and even though his back hurts and his neck is cricked, Jeremy feels more rested than he has in weeks. The second they get out of the airport, the girls hop into a cab. Scarlett kisses Jeremy quickly, something lingering behind it that he wish he had more time to explore.

“We’ll see you soon,” she says. “Don’t worry.”

Jeremy and Chris split off in the opposite direction. The Temple of Dawn is easy to find, giant as it blocks out the stars. It is lit up with pink and purple sparkling lights, changing colors in the dark. “Fuck,” Chris says, looking at the hours of operation on the gate. “It closed at six.”

“When does it open?”

“Seven.”

“Well.” Jeremy looks around. “That’s great.” They sit down to wait and decide what to do. The goddamn hours of operation are once again going to give everyone a chance to catch up, and sure enough the lawyers and Tom and Brie come strolling up a few hours later. Sebastian and Anthony, on the other hand, are nowhere to be found, and Jeremy knows immediately that they have gone to find the Fast Forward.

“Cross your fingers,” he mutters to Chris as they all spread out their sleeping bags on the hard ground. “If they don’t win it, they’re fucked.”

* * *

Of all of the people that Scarlett and Lizzie could be going up against, the last team she would have picked would be Sebastian and Anthony. So of course, here at the Fast Forward, they are frantically racing against the frat brothers to win the game. She likes Sebastian and Anthony: they are funny and kind and they have been there for the girls when their boyfriends (or whatever you want to call them; Scarlett hasn’t had that conversation with Jeremy yet) haven’t been.

At least this isn’t some sort of physically demanding task, because if that was the case they would really be screwed.

They sleep on the street in front of the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, waiting for it to open at seven o’clock. A couple of policemen eye them, but they hunker down and wait, knowing that they will never forgive themselves if they don’t use a Fast Forward and end up being the ones who are eliminated. A few hours later, Sebastian and Anthony show up.

They walk into the courtyard where Scarlett and Lizzie are huddled up, and none of them can keep the disappointment off their faces. “Hey,” Anthony says wearily, coming over to sit down next to Scarlett. She likes them a lot, too much, wishes it was anyone else walking into that courtyard so that she wouldn’t feel guilty in wishing they weren’t there.

“We’ve gotta make a decision,” Sebastian says. It is a testament to the friendship that they have built up through the first eight legs of the race that the frat brothers have this conversation right in front of them.

“We’ve gotta go for it.” Anthony sounds weary in a bone-tired sort of way. “I’m sorry,” he says, turning to Scarlett and Lizzie. “We have to.”

“Don’t,” Lizzie says quickly. She moves over so that Sebastian can slide in next to her. “That’s what this is all about.”

The brick wall is cold against their backs, and they take turns sleeping, someone staying up to watch their stuff. Anthony falls asleep on Scarlett’s shoulder, and even though it’s not Jeremy, it’s still nice.

The morning comes quickly enough, the birds chirping and the air calm. A monk is inside the temple lighting candles and incense, and as soon as he is done, they let the four of them enter the shrine. It is quiet and serene; there is some sort of presence there that Scarlett hasn’t felt before, something that makes her feel centered even though they are about to take a huge gamble.

“To collect the Fast Forward, you must play a traditional Buddhist game,” Lizzie reads in a hushed tone once they take the clue out of its box. “There is a row of urns along the temple wall.” Both Scarlett and Lizzie look over at the urns underneath a long set of windows. Each one is small, settled on top of a short metal stand. “There are one hundred and eight urns in total. Locals traditionally drop one coin into each urn in order to ensure good luck. Choose a bowl of coins from the nearby table and drop one into each urn. If you discover that the bowl you have chosen has more or less than one hundred and eight coins, then you must choose another bowl and play again. The first team to choose a bowl with exactly one hundred and eight coins will win the Fast Forward pass.” Lizzie stops reading, looks up at Scarlett. “It’s gonna come down to it, Scar. Brawl for it all. You ready for this?”

Scarlett nods firmly, even though her heart is already starting to race. “Winning takes guts, LO. We have to try.”

Anthony squeezes Scarlett’s shoulder quickly before he grabs a bowl of coins, dropping a handful into Anthony’s outstretched palm. Lizzie and Scarlett follow suit, starting at the opposite end of the temple. Soon it is full of the sound of coins hitting the bottom of the urns, echoing throughout the high chamber. Scarlett makes extra sure that she is only dropping one coin into each urn, counting under her breath as she does so.

Sebastian and Anthony finish their bowl first, finding that they have far too few coins. Scarlett and Lizzie have too many, and they race back to the table where the frat brothers are choosing another bowl. There are at least thirty bowls on the table; this could be a long game. It takes Scarlett and Lizzie but they come up with a system, Lizzie dropping the coins and Scarlett following behind her to hand them to her a few at a time. They race down the line, dodging around Sebastian and Anthony when they meet in the middle.

She can hear them muttering to each other, Anthony counting under his breath and swearing when they come up short again. They start trying to gauge how many coins are in the bowls before they pick one, but every time they are wrong. They are on their seventh or eighth bowl when they get to the end of the line. “This is it, this is it!” Lizzie says, getting more excited as they near the end, but they only have one hundred and seven coins, and Lizzie swears loudly, Anthony holding back a laugh as they race by.

They are coming back around the corner with another bowl when Anthony shouts. Scarlett rounds a pillar just in time to see him raise his fist in the air and then slap a hand over his mouth. Her heart drops, Lizzie slamming into the back of her. “Ow, Scar, your brake lights are out - oh, shit!”

Sebastian whips around as Anthony takes the Fast Forward from one of the girls working at the temple. “Shit,” he says. “I’m so-”

“Don’t apologize,” Scarlett says quickly. She hugs them both, and it feels like Sebastian is shaking, all of his muscles tensed so tightly. “Go, go. We’ll see you later.”

“Take the boat across the river to the other temple,” Anthony murmurs into her ear away from the view of the camera. “It’s the quickest way; it’s only like two minutes. We checked it out before we got here.”

“Okay,” she says, squeezing his arm before she lets go.

“Good luck,” he says.

Scarlett doesn’t say what she is thinking: they are going to need it.

* * *

They run into Scarlett and Lizzie on the streets of Bangkok.

The Detour seems simple enough. Seems is the operative word. All they have to do is get to a town three hours away called Kanchanaburi, and the Detour gives them the option of taking a car or a bus. If they choose the bus, they will be able to leave right away, a bus departing every fifteen minutes, but they will have to pay and it will inevitably be slow. They can also find a private car somewhere on the streets of a crowded neighborhood; it will be free and comfortable and quick, but they will only have a license plate number for reference and it might take a while to find among the tens, dozens, hundreds of cars.

Jeremy and Chris decide to go for the car. Three hours later, they are still trudging around that goddamn neighborhood. They have been taking turns sprinting down streets, getting more and more frustrated. Tom and Brie went for the bus straight away, but the lawyers also decide to try to find one of the taxis, and they criss-cross back and forth in front of Jeremy and Chris for a while before they lose sight of them. Jeremy doesn’t know if they have somehow managed to find their cars or if they are just as hopelessly behind as Jeremy and Chris are.

He is arguing with Chris about whose turn it is to run down a side street to quickly check all of the license plates when Lizzie bursts around a corner, slamming into Jeremy and sending them both flying to the ground. His heart sinks. “Oh my God,” he says, not even caring about the fact that his elbow is bleeding. “You guys didn’t make it.”

“No,” she says, shaking her head grimly. “Smackie beat us by a hair. We went to the other temple, got the clue, and now we’ve just been wandering around here.”

“Fuck,” Jeremy says, rubbing his forehead and squinting, trying to stave off the massive headache building behind his eyes. “We lost the other teams ages ago.”

“You think it’s just us left?”

“It’s gotta be.”

Scarlett appears around the corner, squinting down at her clue. “LO, let’s try-” She looks up, sees Jeremy, and tears immediately well up in her eyes as she pulls him to his feet. “Oh my God, what are you guys still doing here?”

“We can’t find it.” Jeremy shakes his head. “We’ve been out here for hours. We can’t find it.” He wants to kiss her but he feels so defeated by their own failure compounded by the fact that it is going to be one of the two of them going home, and he just hugs her tightly, burying his face in her hair for a few moments before letting go. There is no way that this is going to be a non-elimination round, not after the last leg. He is about to lose Scarlett, one way or the other, and even the thought of knowing that there is an after for them isn’t a comfort in the moment.

“Come on,” she says, taking a deep breath. Chris and Lizzie are talking off to the side, not loud enough for Jeremy to hear anything they’re saying. “We’ll find the taxis together. Two more pairs of eyes has got to do some good.”

And it does; just fifteen minutes later, Scarlett spots one of the vans. “This is slowly souring my attitude,” Chris is saying like it wasn’t soured two hours ago when Scarlett shrieks, sprinting up ahead of them.

“Oh my God,” Jeremy says, breaking into a run to catch up with her. “We got a live one.” They are so elated by the fact that they have finally found one of the goddamn vans that they don’t realize the obvious: there is only one.

Jeremy doesn’t even have to look at Chris to know what his solution is. “Take it,” Chris says before Jeremy can get the words out. He was poised to say the same thing. “Take it now.”

Scarlett turns to look at Jeremy, concern written all over her face. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life, Scar,” he says quickly so that she won’t notice the anxiety laced underneath his words. “Y’all get in that taxi and don’t look back. Understand?”

She looks at Lizzie, who shakes her head almost imperceptibly. “We can’t-”

“You can and you will,” Jeremy answers. “You saw it first. Take it.”

“You’ll be eliminated,” she says as Chris pulls Lizzie off to the side, disappearing around the back of the van. Jeremy shakes his head, doesn’t want to think about what the hell they are doing that they can’t do in front of him and Scarlett. God only knows; the four of them have been together almost nonstop, and Jeremy just hopes that it’s not something that is going to get Chris arrested and thrown into a Thai jail.

“Who fucking cares, Scar?” He lowers his voice, unclipping the front strap of her backpack and pushing it off her shoulders, opening the van door and putting it inside. “I’m gonna be waiting for you at that finish line, you hear?”

“Jeremy-” Tears are bright in her eyes, threatening to fall down her cheeks.

“I told you,” he says firmly, sliding his hands behind her and spreading his palms over her back, memorizing the curve of her spine and the length of her eyelashes and the flush of her cheeks. “I would give all of this up just to have you. You were the one who said that we would still be an us when this is over, right?”

“Right, but-”

Jeremy kisses her quickly and insistently, not wanting to waste any more time or think about it any longer. He knows that if he doesn’t let go now, he may never be able to. “So go. Go kick everybody’s ass and then come home to me, baby. Wherever that may be.”

* * *

It damn near breaks Scarlett’s heart to leave Jeremy there.

She thought she cared about the race, but she realizes in that moment that she doesn’t. If she wasn’t sure before, she is now. As they pull away from the curb, she keeps her eyes locked on Jeremy, and she can’t tell but she thinks that he is watching her too. Then they disappear around the corner and the boys are gone. She turns to look at Lizzie, who has her hat pulled low over her eyes, and it looks like she is crying. Scarlett doesn’t say anything, just puts her hand on Lizzie’s leg and leaves it there for the entire ride to the monastery in Kanchanaburi.

A couple of hours later, their cab spits them out in front of the monastery, a clue box sitting in front of it and telling them that they have to complete a Roadblock. Lizzie nominates herself, and Scarlett sits there anxiously as Lizzie puts on a bright orange robe and walks through a literal pit full of tigers.

They are assured by their team that the tigers were raised by hand by Buddhist monks and that as long as Lizzie keeps her distance and her eyes on the ground, she will be okay, but that doesn’t make it any less nerve wracking. Scarlett sits on top of the cliff, staring down at the narrow passageway below. It is full of tigers, all of them chained to rocks, and the chains are long enough for them to roam around freely. She sees one of them approach Lizzie as she makes her way through the ravine towards the clay pot at the far end.

One of them makes a low rumbling sound in the back of its throat, the noise drifting up towards Scarlett. She sees Kat and Hayley trailing behind Lizzie as the tiger follows her, batting at the back of her cat. Lizzie puts a hand over her mouth, and Scarlett knows that she is biting her knuckles like she always does when she is scared. She grabs a clue from the pot, making her way back slowly.

“Holy shit,” Lizzie says once she is back on safe ground. “I got swatted by a tiger.” She looks down at her calf. “I think it drew blood.”

“Oh God,” Scarlett groans. “I’m gonna have to hear about this for the rest of my life.”

“All you had to do was a couple of little rats. I was down there with a whole-ass tiger gang.”

Scarlett hugs her tightly, her mind immediately jumping back to Jeremy and Chris now that Lizzie is with her again. She knows that she won’t see Jeremy again for at least a little while; there is no miraculous save coming their way this time. She doesn’t know what they are going to do after the race, figures that they will have some time to talk about it eventually, but she does know that now she has to win for all four of them.

“Okay,” Lizzie says, shrugging off the robe and shoving the clue towards Scarlett. “This better be a pit stop.”

It is: they are directed to the Tiger Cave Temple in Krabi. They get back into their taxi, Scarlett’s heart sinking even lower with every hour that they drive. She wonders if the boys are on their way, if maybe they managed to find a van soon after the girls left, but she knows it doesn’t matter. Regardless of where they are, they are last.

Sure enough, the girls check into the pit stop, and Phil tells them that they are team number four. Neither of them can muster any enthusiasm at the fact that they are still in the race, and there is something behind Phil’s eyes that Scarlett can’t read. Maybe she just doesn’t want to.

The temple is gorgeous, she thinks as they sit there, waiting for the boys to come in. She knows that they will wait there as long as they need to, and she has plenty of time to look around. The temple is on top of a large hill, the inside carved out of the side of the cliff. It is all smooth stone, the floors shining and marble with large gold Buddhas nestled inside the walls. There are candles everywhere, throwing long shadows across the cavern.

Scarlett rests her head on Lizzie’s shoulder. They sit on cushions against the wall, the sky turning black outside as a storm rolls in. Tom and Brie come out to see them, and Sebastian and Anthony sit with them for a while before heading off to bed. Scarlett must doze off because suddenly Lizzie is shaking her awake, whispering her name frantically.

“What?” she snaps, her mind bleary with exhaustion.

Lizzie just points. Cobie has come out into the cave, and she is talking in hushed tones to Phil. The lawyers’ producer Gwyneth is also with them, and they are all huddled together. A couple of the executive producers come in, people that Scarlett hasn’t seen since they were signing all of those initial contracts back in New York City. It feels so long ago now, she thinks.

“What the hell is going on?” she hisses to Lizzie, who just shakes her head. A car door slams outside, and the girls jump up.

“That’s gotta be them, right?” Lizzie asks, and Scarlett nods. Sure enough, a few seconds later Don and Dave come into the room, Dave walking backwards with the camera balanced on his shoulder. Jeremy and Chris are holding their heads up high when they enter the room, prepared to take their elimination with grace, but they both stop in their tracks suddenly.

The lawyers are coming out of a small room off the right side of the cave across from where Scarlett and Lizzie have been camped out. They press themselves up against the back wall, not knowing if they should be there but sure as hell not about to leave now. Lizzie reaches down, catches Scarlett’s hand in her own and squeezes tightly.

“What’s going on?” Jeremy asks, his voice carrying across the chamber. It is so dark in the cave with the rain pouring outside that even with all of the candles Scarlett can barely see him, and she knows that she and Lizzie must be hidden in the shadows completely.

“Jeremy and Chris,” Phil says. He pauses for dramatic effect, and Scarlett feels like she may fall over. “You are the last team to arrive.”

“Yeah.” Chris sighs. “We knew that. We knew that.” He sounds resigned.

“But…” At the word, Scarlett jerks her head up, her heart stopping in her chest. “There’s been a problem.”

“Spit it out, Phil,” Jeremy says. Lizzie is squeezing Scarlett’s hand so tightly it feels like her bones are grinding together.

“Robert and Chris did not correctly complete the Detour.” Scarlett wishes like hell she could see the looks on the lawyers’ faces.

“What now?”

“When they were unable to find one of the hidden cars, they chose to hire a cab to take them to the monastery in Kanchanaburi,” Phil explains. “According to the rulebook, that results in a twenty-four hour penalty. With that penalty,” he says to Jeremy and Chris. “You two are still in the race.” A stunned silence fills the cave, and someone puts a hand on Scarlett’s shoulder. She practically jumps out of her skin until she realizes that it is Bradley. “Robert and Chris, you have been eliminated.”

Scarlett doesn’t know what to do, just waits for Robert and Chris to say their good-byes and leave, and then Jeremy is immediately looking around for Cobie. “Scar,” he is saying. “Where is Scar? She’s here, right? I need to-”

Thankfully Bradley pulls Scarlett out of her hiding place and into the center of the room. Jeremy is lit up by candles, and he turns, seeing her. “Oh my God.” He races towards her, pushing her backwards a couple of steps as he hugs her. “It ain’t over till it’s over, right?”

Scarlett closes her eyes when he kisses her, the candlelight flickering in the dark. Either they’ve got somebody watching over them or they are the luckiest people in the world. She doesn’t care which one it is at this point; she just hopes beyond hope that that streak continues. It is Jeremy she wants next to her, a million dollars or not, and if anyone can battle their way back into it, it’s them.

Lizzie was right about one thing at least: it is going to be a brawl for it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7vfpk7ZKqu0ZSnYKahc96T?si=fa_csGTpRxiFnnqCEOVD5A


	12. i will lift you up if you can't reach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> do you ever think about the stars  
> to see them clear you have to step into the dark  
> oh i will carry you  
> i will lift you up if you can't reach  
> we are closer than you think  
> / stone's throw by the national parks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoo boy we are getting closer and closer to the end. i am on track to have it finished two weeks from now, so fingers crossed! my husband left yesterday for a military base and i don't start school until the 19th or something, so hopefully for most of august i will be writing. once this is done, emily and i have something new that we are working on which i am really excited about so stick around for that!
> 
> @emily: as always, i can't say thank you enough. you're gonna get tired of me screaming at you about my fics one day, and i am so grateful that that day hasn't come. thank you for being my best friend, my partner in crime, and the most incredible writer i have ever known.
> 
> thank you for reading, commenting, and leaving kudos! i am truly unworthy and y'all are truly the bomb.
> 
> insta: @amandaalexands | tumblr: @clintxbarton

When they get ready to leave after their twelve hour rest period, the rain has passed, the sky is beautiful, and Jeremy knows for sure that he doesn’t regret one second of what happened.

No matter how much he wants to win, he knows the second he practically throws Scarlett into that van that he would do it all over again a hundred times, not changing one thing. He knows it as they keep wandering the streets, finally finding their own taxi by a stroke of luck about twenty minutes later, nestled in an alleyway between two squat houses. He knows it when Chris hugs him and tells Jeremy that they did the right thing, taking a couple of extra seconds before clapping him on the back and pulling away. He knows it as he is walking through a tiger’s den, trying to keep his distance as he puts one foot in front of the other, his heart pounding so loud he is sure that the giant cats can hear it. And he knows it as they walk through a storm the likes of which can only be found in southeast Asia. They approach the door of the temple, their heads held high.

There is no saving them this time. There is no one behind them. There is no way that this is a non-elimination leg. They have to suck it up and take their medicine. This is what he deserves for leaving Scarlett and Lizzie behind in India, and he will be waiting for her at that finish line with a big smile on his face, just like he promised.

But then they see Phil waiting for them in the temple with Cobie and Gwyneth, and he looks at Chris when the lawyers come out of a room, looking down at their shoes and not meeting Jeremy’s eye. “What did Bert and Ernie do?” he mutters to Chris out of the corner of his mouth. Rain is dripping off them and pooling on the floor in puddles.

“What the hell did we do?” Chris asks back.

Things happen quickly, and Jeremy has spent hours prepping himself for the words to come out of Phil’s mouth, for him to tell them that they are eliminated and it is time to go home, that at first he can’t comprehend what is being said. He doesn’t understand that the lawyers never found one of the vans, that they just took a taxi instead and therefore have been penalized twenty-four hours. He doesn’t realize that this means that Jeremy and Chris are still in the race until Phil says it a second time.

When it finally hits him, all he wants to do is tell Scarlett. “Scar,” he says, whipping around and finally taking in the beauty of the temple around him. It is dark outside, the only light in the cave coming from candles, and he can’t see a damn thing. “Where is Scar?”

Bradley pulls Scarlett forwards, and Jeremy drops his stuff on the ground, leaving it behind as he runs towards her. He hits her hard, practically knocking her over as he buries his head in her hair. “It ain’t over till it’s over, right?” she says, echoing his own words back to her, something he has said to her at many points during the race.

“Fuck,” he says, clearing his throat before he kisses her. Everything else around them melts away; he doesn’t give a fuck that there are camera crews and producers and other contestants milling around. Every time they make it back to each other, he is even more sure that she is the one for him. He couldn’t leave her if he tried.

They are only a couple of hours behind the girls, leaving the next day at noon. The girls rolled out at about ten o’clock, but Jeremy knows that if there isn’t a train to get on then it is going to be hard to catch up again.

“Check in with ‘The King’ at Raile Beach,” Chris reads. He practically throws the clue down. “Why is ‘The King’ in quotes?”

“To fuck with us.” Jeremy grabs it from him before he can rip it up in frustration. “Let’s get out of here.”

The sun is streaming down on them when they leave the temple, and Jeremy can already feel his shoulders burning. They walk down the steep hill to the street where there is a taxi waiting. It is an open air cart attached to the back of a motorcycle, the exact sort of thing that you would see in a beach town like Krabi. “Jeremy?” the cab driver asks before he can say anything.

He looks at Chris, frowning. “Uh, yeah… I didn’t call ahead though, I-”

The driver grabs a piece of paper off the dashboard of the car. His accent is thick, but his words come across clearly. “Your girlfriend called. Asked if we could meet you at ten.”

Jeremy knows that if his ears weren’t burning bright red from the heat already, they certainly are now. “Girlfriend, huh?” Chris asks, turning to him.

“Shut up.” Jeremy practically shoves him into the cab. Like hell they are going to talk about this in front of the camera. Besides, the truth of the matter is that the two of them haven’t talked about it, haven’t put a label on it like that. It seems almost unnecessary now that he has told her that he is in love with her. “Twelve year olds have girlfriends,” he says once Dave is out of earshot. “I’m her man.”

For the last nine legs, they have fallen into a pattern. Jeremy is always more tense at the beginning right after they leave the pit stop, Chris full of energy for a new day and a new opportunity to get ahead. Somewhere in the middle of the leg, they switch places completely, and Jeremy becomes the one calming down Chris down, telling him that everything is going to be okay and that they’re doing the best they can. It works for them.

They have to stop and get gas on the way, Jeremy muttering “Sure. Five hundred miles to the gallon and he’s gotta stop and get gas now,” but they make it to the dock, taking a wooden boat with a sputtering engine for thirty baht each across the water until they hit the beach. As they pull in, they see giant rocks rising out of the island just behind the beach, and by asking a few people on the street, they find out that “The King” is King’s Climbing rock climbing company.

They follow a sandy path through the trees to the climbing company, which is basically a little hut with a giant yellow and white flag hanging from the front. “Hello, my friend,” Chris says to the man standing inside waiting for him, who is so short that even Jeremy dwarfs him. There is a clue waiting there for them, telling them to get outfitted with rock climbing gear and hike a half mile through the jungle to their next clue.

If there is any point in the race that Chris and Jeremy are confident that they can make up time, it is going to be right here.

They get into their harnesses as quickly as they can, shedding as many layers of clothing as they can. “Alright,” Chris says as they leave the hut. “Let’s rock.” Jeremy doesn’t answer him, just rolls his eyes and tightens his backpack straps. “Get it? Rock? Because rock climbing? Oh fuck off then.”

They come out onto the beach, see a sheer rock face rising high in the air above them. A flag is fluttering on the side of the cliff, just visible from this far away. “Oh boy,” Chris says. “Lizzie probably shit her pants.”

As they start to climb through the thick trees, brush seeming to grab at their legs as they plow through soft sand and get to harder dirt, Jeremy thinks about the girls. He knows Scarlett was the one telling Lizzie that it was going to be okay, that they just have to push ahead and not look down. He wishes she were here next to him.

As they get higher up, still deep in the trees, there is a rope tied taut along the nonexistent path for them to hold onto. They need it, pulling themselves along as the ground seems to fall away from them faster than they can push forward. He has no idea how Dave and Don are doing this. Jeremy’s backpack feels like it is about to drag him off the side of the mountain. “Maybe after that swing and bungee thing, this will be like cake,” Jeremy says, puffing out air between his words.

“Yeah, maybe,” Chris says. He is behind Jeremy, kicking sand into his shoe with every step. “Although I have a feeling she got about halfway up and panicked.”

“If there’s anything that’s gonna beat that panic right out of you, it’s this fucking race.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

After a while, they pop out above the tree line, the ocean stretching wide and bright blue along the horizon. They stop to look at it for approximately one second, admiring the view before they grab the clue. As Jeremy’s hand scrapes the bottom of the pot, he is reminded that they are in last place; theirs is the last clue left. At least it means the girls got here safe and sound. He wishes he knew how far behind everyone else they are.

Jeremy is breathing hard as he tries to read the clue; Chris isn’t in any better shape than him, bending over to put his hands on his knees. “Detour,” Jeremy says. “You need to reach a route marker inside a hilltop cave. If you choose to hike, you must travel along a long, winding path. It is not physically demanding but it is slow going. If you choose to climb, you must rock climb up the face of the cliff. It is very strenuous, but it will be much faster.”

“We came here to climb,” Chris says. “We’re fucking climbing.”

“Whatever you want, brother.”

Jeremy knows that Scarlett forced Lizzie to do it, told her that it would be the fastest way and she would have to just suck it up. He knows that she told her that if she could jump off that cliff, then she could do anything.

They are attached to a rope that is in turn anchored to the top of the cliff, but it’s nothing like the rock climbing that they do back in Seattle when Chris is in a hipster mood. There is nothing to hold onto but the bare face of the rock, and it is more difficult than Jeremy had anticipated. They climb and climb and climb, reaching for hand holds and catching themselves from falling more than once. They reach a flat ledge, unclip their harnesses and clip onto a different rope. Once they get to the cave, Chris grabs the next clue, which tells them to head to Sea, Land, and Trek in Bor Tor, Au Luk. The hours of operation are eight to five.

Jeremy looks at his watch; it is only about two o’clock now, so they have plenty of time. If they weren’t scrambling just to catch up, this might be the most enjoyable leg of the race yet. Jeremy could get used to the sunshine and the ocean and the extreme sports. Maybe one day he’ll move here; he could live on a beach with Scarlett stretched out next to him.

They rappel down the side of the rock face and down into a boat that is bobbing in the water. It is hands down the coolest thing that Jeremy has ever done, even if his arms and legs are burning by the time he drops into the boat. A few minutes later, Chris lands into the boat next to him, blood dripping down his arm and into the water.

“Shit.” Jeremy reaches over to grab wrist. “What did you do?”

“Smashed my hand on the rock.” Chris shakes his head. “It’s all good. It’s not broken.”

* * *

If Scarlett could convince Lizzie to rock climb up a cliff, dangling precariously over the ocean, then she can convince anyone to do anything.

It is a feat, that is for sure. She manages to get her up above the trees, telling her not to look behind them even though it is the most gorgeous thing Scarlett has ever seen. But then Lizzie straight up refuses to climb, looking at the cliff disappearing into the sun above them. It takes at least ten minutes of coaxing, during which Tom and Brie pass them coming down.

“I swear it’s not that bad,” Tom says, his eyes wide. “Just don’t look down.”

“Don’t look down,” Lizzie mutters. “You say it like it’s easy.”

“It is easy. I promise.”

“Yeah, easy for Spiderman.”

“Come on, LO.” Scarlett is practically begging. “What are we gonna do, hike? Do you want to go home?”

“Well, no, but-”

“The guys are just a couple of hours behind us, and you know that they’re gonna rock climb. We have to do this.”

Finally, she gets Lizzie to hook in, and she follows her up the cliff, not giving her a chance to back out. She tells her where to put her hand and what ledge looks good for a foothold, and it takes a while but they both make it up to the cliff. And once they’re up, there is no way out but to rappel down into the boat, which Lizzie does, albeit screaming the entire way.

Scarlett wonders how far the boys are behind them, and she wishes she was experiencing this with Jeremy. But she knows that it doesn’t really matter; what’s important is that they stay in the race because the only way she is going to get to be with Jeremy after it’s over is if one of them wins.

She remembers the conversation that they had the night before after Jeremy and Chris made it to the cave in Krabi. Jeremy tells her that he wants to be with her after the race, just like he has been saying for a few days, but this time he says that he will do whatever it takes, whether that means moving. They are too exhausted and worn down to figure out any logistics, but the ideas and possibilities are there in the back of her mind.

“I hated every single second of that,” Lizzie says as she drops into the boat next to Scarlett, who had to go first to show her that it was safe. A few minutes later, once Kat and Hayley have been brought around to join them in a different boat, they are heading back to the beach, the ocean skipping across water so smooth it looks like glass.

“We need to find a car or a bus to Au Luk,” Scarlett says, reading the clue again. “We are right on T and B’s heels now, which is fine with us. As long as we can stay out in front for this leg, we’ll be happy.”

“Who knows?” Lizzie says, clearly thinking about the boys. “Maybe this leg is a non-elimination leg. Maybe it’s not.” She reaches down to retie her shoe. “We’ve just got our eyes on that top three.”

Thailand is like nothing Scarlett has seen before, and as the boat races towards shore, she thinks that it may be the best place that they have visited so far. The water is clear, getting blue and green as it gets deeper, white sand covering the beaches and so soft it feels like powdered sugar. Giant cliffs rise out of the jungles and the water, casting long shadows above everything. She doesn’t want to leave, she thinks as they hop down onto the sand, Lizzie catching her foot on the edge of the boat and carrying them both down into a heap.

They talk to someone at a boat rental hut on the beach who tells them that he will get them a taxi. Five minutes later they are seated inside a white van that is (thank God) air conditioned, heading towards their next destination. They have no idea where they’re going, their cab driver stopping at a visitor’s center to talk to someone inside who points them in the right direction. They get lost again for about twenty minutes, stopping at a gas station. Scarlett is almost too tired to care. They have no idea where Bor Tor is or what Sea, Land, and Trek might be. About an hour later, they pull into Bor Tor, a flag fluttering in a parking lot.

“Roadblock,” Scarlett says as she pulls the red clue out of the envelope. “Upper body strength is the key to success.” She looks up at Lizzie who just snorts.

“That’s neither of us.”

“Well… one of us has to do it.” Scarlett looks around. Sebastian and Anthony are nowhere to be found, and neither are Tom and Brie. She knows that if the guys don’t pull something out of their behinds, they will be eliminated, but she isn’t going to slow herself down, not even subconsciously, to give them a chance. “I’ll do it,” she decides firmly, not wanting to waste any time.

“Okay.” Lizzie shrugs. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure, LO.” She opens the second envelope. “Rent a kayak and travel together to Tham Hua Kalok - I just butchered that name, let’s move past it. The chosen team member must do all the paddling.” She groans as Lizzie laughs. “That’s great. Real glad you packed all those shoes now, LO.”

They head down to the riverbank just behind them and throw on life jackets. Scarlett holds the kayak steady as Lizzie gets in the front, and she settles their backpacks between them, hoping the weight is balanced and they won’t go tumbling into the river. The river spreads out in front of them quickly, so wide that it looks like a lake, and more rocks rise out of the water on either side.

They are out in the middle of the river when they hear a commotion off to one side. “On your left!” she hears Anthony scream, even though there is no one else around.

“Oh my God!” She stops paddling, shaking out her shoulders as Anthony and Sebastian glide up alongside them, Sebastian sprawled out in the front of the kayak. Anthony is right; he really does get all the shit Roadblocks. “We thought you were way ahead of us.”

“We were in front at first,” Anthony says, hooking his paddle onto the side of her kayak to hold them together. “We got so lost on the way here. We were sure we were eliminated. You seen T and B or Renner and Evans?”

“T and B at the rock climb,” Lizzie says, splashing water towards Sebastian, who looks like he may actually be asleep. “Not since then though.”

“Get ready to eat our dust.” Anthony pushes off their kayak, sending it wobbling precariously, and Lizzie screeches.

Thankfully, Anthony slows down enough for Scarlett to keep up, and they head towards the cave together, spotting a set of stone stairs leading up to it with a flag at the bottom. Anthony helps them steady their kayak long enough for them to get out, hopping up the stairs and into the cave. It is giant, light streaming in and rock formations dripping from the ceilings. They climb down into it, following a path of tiny candles to the clues sitting on top of piles of snorkel gear.

Scarlett is breathing hard, letting Lizzie climb up the rocks to grab the clue. “Well,” she says, ripping it open and throwing one down to Sebastian. “At least we’re already wet.”

“I don’t know about this, guys,” Sebastian says, yawning exaggeratedly. “I’m a little tired from all that paddling.”

Anthony may murder him before this leg is up, Scarlett thinks.

“Return your kayak to Sea, Land, and Trek,” Anthony reads. “Either of you can paddle. Oh, you’re in for it, Seb,” he says, turning to his partner. “More information is waiting offshore at Chicken Island, where you must dive for it.”

* * *

Chris’s hand is, in fact, broken.

Or at least his knuckle is. As they are in the car on the way to Sea, Land, and Trek, Jeremy wraps it, but his knuckle is swelling up and turning black and blue. Don gets on the phone with Cobie, asking Chris if he wants a medic. “No,” he says firmly, shaking his head. “When we get to that pit stop, someone can look at it. Not a moment sooner.”

Fortunately, Jeremy is the one who decides to do the Roadblock, knowing that Chris cannot do anything requiring upper body strength with his hand in that shape. They get to the cave quickly, grab the clue, and drop their kayak back at Sea, Land, and Trek. They take a boat to Chicken Island, about four miles off shore. As they get closer, they see two boats anchored in the ocean next to a flag hooked to a buoy.

Chris leans forward, squinting against the glare of the sun. “That’s the girls and Smackie,” he says, sounding unsure of himself. “Right? How did we catch up to them?”

Jeremy frowns. “I have… no idea.” As they pull up next to one of the boats, the driver dropping the anchor down into the water to hold them in place, Lizzie pops out of the water.

“Liz!” Jeremy yells to her. “Hey!”

She practically squeals when she sees them. “Oh my God! What are you doing here?”

Scarlett comes up next, followed closely by Sebastian and Anthony. They figure out that Jeremy and Chris must have made up time on their way to Sea, Land, and Trek, their driver bringing them straight there when everyone else got lost. Jeremy hauls Scarlett up into his boat, not caring that she is dripping wet when he wraps her arms around her tightly. Off to the side, Lizzie is fussing over Chris’s hand.

“Have you seen Tom and Brie?” Jeremy asks, his voice low. Scarlett shakes her head. “Do you think they’re behind us?”

“I don’t know how they could be.” Scarlett looks worried, chewing on her bottom lip. “It’s gotta be the three of us racing for second and third.”

“You got your clue?”

Scarlett nods, nodding her head in Lizzie’s direction, where she is clutching a bright yellow envelope sealed in a plastic bag. “Okay.” He nods, trying to prep himself for the fact that even though they have caught up, it is still going to be one of the two of them going home. “Then you better go.”

It looks like she is going to say something, but she doesn’t, just nods back at him. “You’ll do everything you can?”

“Whatever it takes.” He holds his hand out to help her up onto the edge of the boat so she can jump back in the water, laughing as Chris throws Lizzie overboard. He keeps his eyes on the girls as they scramble back into their own boat, turning to wave as they putter off after Anthony and Sebastian. “You ready, brother?”

Chris is already pulling his shirt over his head, dropping it onto the seat of the boat. “Ready.”

They jump into the water, which feels good after the heat of the sun, but Chris makes a face when his bandaged hand hits the salt water. “That does not feel good, let me tell you.” They dive down to the bottom of the buoy, anchored into the rocks on the ocean floor, pulling the clue out of a clay vase shaped like a fish’s mouth. It only takes a few seconds before they are back on the boat, speeding back toward land, heading to the beach where the pit stop is located. When they are almost to shore, they pass Tom and Brie, who wave at them but look worried.

“What the fuck?” Chris mutters to Jeremy as they wave back. “What happened to them?”

“No idea.” Jeremy shrugs. “But we are still in it.”

Sebastian, Anthony, and the girls are waiting there for them, and Scarlett looks ecstatic, the look on her face obvious even from Jeremy’s perch on the boat out in the ocean. He wishes that he could have seen the surprise when she realized that they weren’t going to be last.

They take a flying leap out of the boat before it even comes to a stop, jogging towards the mat where Phil is waiting. “Jeremy and Chris,” he says, not dragging it out at all this time. “You are team number three.”

They are barely off the mat before Chris is whisked away to medical, Lizzie following behind and asking the paramedic a million questions. He can hear Chris saying “Liz, I’m fine” over and over, followed swiftly by “no, I’m not going to lose my hand. Are you high?” before they disappear into a hut on the beach where producers are swarming around.

Jeremy turns to Scarlett, slinging his arm over her shoulders and suggesting that they go find a room and a bed, but they are stopped by Cobie and Bradley, who approach them en force. “Uh oh,” Scarlett says, pulling away from Jeremy. “Are we in trouble?” She turns to Jeremy. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.” He snorts, looking back at Cobie. “What’s up?”

“We want to get an interview with the two of you,” Cobie says, pointing over to the beach where their camera crews are setting up in a couple of wooden chairs.

“Together?”

“Yes,” Bradley says, pushing them over in the direction of the chairs. All Jeremy wants to do is shower and fall into bed next to Scarlett, but they sit down in the chairs, looking at their producers expectantly. As they wait for the crews to finish setting up, Tom and Brie come rolling in, looking entirely defeated, but they can hear their shrieks when Phil tells them that this was a non-elimination round and they are still in the race. Jeremy is happy for them because it is Tom and Brie, but he wants the competition whittled down to nothing. They have got to be close to the end now; they aren’t sure how many legs there are total, but if there are a couple more non-elimination rounds this thing could go on for longer than they’ve been expecting.

“So,” Bradley says, standing next to the camera set out in front of them. Jeremy looks over at Scarlett, who is chewing on her bottom lip again, but she doesn’t look scared this time, just expectant. “Are you two a couple?”

“Well, let’s just jump right into it, brother,” Jeremy says, and Scarlett laughs. She doesn’t say anything, just looks at him to answer. So he does, nodding decisively. “Yes. We are a couple.”

“When did that happen?”

“I’m not sure exactly.” Jeremy reaches over, sliding his hand over Scarlett’s outside the view of the camera. “I would say somewhere between France and Tunisia. Things kind of changed for us when Chris and I got lost in the desert.”

Cobie and Bradley trade off asking them more questions, explaining that they are setting things up to explain to everyone when the show airs, as it would be damn near impossible to cut together any footage without Scarlett and Jeremy together, at least according to Cobie. “What about after the race ends?” she asks.

Scarlett takes the lead on this one, and Jeremy is glad that they talked about this previously because this would be a weird setting to do it for the first time. “We’re going to be together,” she says. “Regardless of what happens, we’re going to figure it out.”

“Would you move for Jeremy?”

She hesitates, and it looks like she is contemplating her answer. They hadn’t talked about this part yet. “Yes,” she says finally, and Jeremy knows that the pause before her answer was not because she is unsure. She sounds even more sure of herself than she has answering any other question. “I would move. I will…” She looks over at Jeremy. “I will if he asks.”

“So this is a long term thing?”

“I think it’s long term.” Jeremy winks at her. “You know, I didn’t believe in love at first sight until I met her, but she made me believe in it.”

Scarlett ducks her head, blushing, and when they are finally released and the producers let them go, she turns to him, winding her arms around his neck and pulling her towards them. “Is that true?” she asks.

“Is what true?”

“That I made you believe in love at first sight.”

“You make me believe in a lot of things, sweetheart.” He leans down to kiss her, brushing her cheek with his nose before feeling her lips under his, and he tightens his arms around her waist. “You make me believe in everything.”


	13. we light up the sky for the world to see

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cause i wanna be like the wind  
> i wanna run with you  
> we can be wolves howling at the great white moon  
> i wanna be by your side when we light up the sky for the world to see  
> run, run, run, run, run with me  
> / monsters of the north by the national parks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> between my husband leaving for the military, a car accident, and some medical stuff, i have really been going through it this week, and honestly these four idiots have completely pulled me back and taken my mind off things. we are almost finished with this and i am so sad about it but also so excited for what's coming.
> 
> thank you thank you thank you for being here. i am so humbled and so grateful.
> 
> insta: @amandaalexands | tumblr: @clintxbarton

“It’s going to be one hell of a race from here,” Lizzie says to the camera as they get ready to leave the pit stop. “One hell of a race.”

Phai Plong Beach is an unbelievable place, something that Scarlett is sure doesn’t really exist outside of her imagination. Giant cliffs surround the bay, the ocean cresting against them over and over and over, lulling her to sleep almost instantly. She wakes up about two hours before they have to leave with Jeremy’s arm curled protectively around her waist.

Before they went to bed, they sat up on the beach for a while, talking and looking at the ocean and trying to enjoy the calm before the storm. Chris and Lizzie come wandering over about an hour later, Chris’s hand splinted and wrapped and taped. “Broken?” Jeremy asks when he looks up and sees Chris coming towards them.

“Just my knuckle,” he says. “It’s nothing.”

All four teams are bunched together, practically neck and neck. It is still dark out as they get ready to go, packing their stuff back into their backpacks, which are getting lighter and lighter with each leg. They are dumping weight every time they get to a pit stop, leaving behind clothes and sleeping bags and (in Lizzie’s case) shoes. Scarlett has to promise her that she will buy her as many shoes as she wants if they win the million dollars in order to get her to leave them behind. They can’t afford to be carrying anything extra at this point.

They leave a couple of minutes behind Sebastian and Anthony, the boys just two minutes behind them. It is just past six in the morning, the bay completely black around them. They can’t see the ocean, but they can hear it hitting the shore behind them as they rip open the clue. Jeremy and Chris are standing there, waiting for their turn, as Scarlett reads it out loud to the camera by the light of the torches stuck in the sand and flickering around them.

“Go check out Top Pavilion at Jingshan Park in Beijing, China,” she says, her voice low so that Tom and Brie, who are stacked up right behind the boys, won’t be able to hear.

“Great,” Lizzie groans, hiking up her backpack. “More airports.”

The night before, they had done some research about the airports in Thailand, wanting to set themselves up for success. They know that the best place to go to is Phuket, which is thankfully not that far from where they are staying. They wait another minute for the boys to be released before they trudge across the sand towards the boats.

The sun is starting to rise as they are ferried out of the bay and down the coast. They are dropped off in town, the boys jumping out of the boat first with a splash to help them out, and they start making their way through the town to see how they can easily get to Phuket. They ask a few people, one of whom offers to call two taxis for them.

“How long?” Scarlett asks. She still has no idea if they actually know what she’s saying.

The guy hesitates. “Ten minutes?”

“Beijing, baby,” Jeremy says as they sit down on the curb to wait, knees hiked up to their chests. He slings an arm around her shoulder. “Final stretch.”

Back at the beginning of the race, Scarlett was visibly excited whenever they were instructed to go to a new country. But the stress of the race and the pure exhaustion and the dread at trying to find a flight has gotten to her; now she can barely even muster a smile, much less any excitement. She drops her head onto Jeremy’s shoulder, closes her eyes and lets the warmth of the sun and the moment wash over her.

She had a long talk with Lizzie the night before about the rest of the race. They know that they want to stay as calm and cool and collected as possible, agreeing that they are happy just to have made it this far. Anything else is icing on the cake. But saying that and actually following through with it are two entirely different things.

“I don’t see Smackie anywhere,” Chris says, as two cabs pull up in front of them. “You think they got out of here that quick?”

Lizzie shrugs, standing up and holding out her hand to help Chris. “Maybe. Doesn’t matter because we will all be stuck at the goddamn airport anyways.”

“The great fucking equalizer.”

Jeremy kisses Scarlett on the cheek before he deposits her in the taxi. He has been uncharacteristically quiet ever since they got into the pit stop the evening before. After they had their talk on the beach with the producers, Scarlett feels like he has been in his own head. She doesn’t know if he is rethinking what he said or if he is just as tired and out of it as she is. All she knows is that she meant every single word.

But right before he closes the cab door behind her, he leans in, telling her that he loves her and kissing her. It is so domestic and quick and beyond the race that it makes her heart flutter. Lizzie just smirks at her after the door closes and they pull away, the boys in the cab right behind them.

“You are so far gone.”

“Shut up, LO.”

The airport in Phuket is nothing like the international airports that they have been to so far. It is quiet and smaller and there aren’t people screaming at each other like there were in Johannesburg or a giant airport strike like there was in Rome. Scarlett is immediately worried that they have made a mistake, that this airport isn’t big enough to get them to China, but they somehow manage to get a flight with absolutely zero problems. Chris does the usual and sweet talks the girl behind the counter into getting them on an eight thirty flight, even though it is already eight o’clock.

They immediately look around for Sebastian and Anthony the second they get on the plane. They don’t see them anywhere, even after they do a complete walk through of the plane once they are up to thirty thousand feet, and that is the first moment that Scarlett realizes that they are out in front.

* * *

Almost three thousand miles later, they land in China.

Jeremy and Chris follow the girls’ lead, buying smaller backpacks at the airport in Bangkok before they have to get on their connecting flight to Beijing. They leave a pile of old clothes and shoes and guide books for countries that they have left in the Bangkok airport, shoving as much as they can into their smaller backpacks.

“You, my dear, are a pack rat,” Scarlett says to him as they sit on chairs, making piles of things to keep and things that need to go. Jeremy agonizes over every single thing in his backpack, not wanting to give any of it up. By nature, he has never been a materialistic person, but when all you have is what’s on your back, you don’t want to give up a single thread of it.

“I am not.” He glares at her as she throws another sweatshirt into the discard pile, but he lets it go. He knows in the long run it doesn’t fucking matter.

One thing he manages to keep secret is the tiny bag of stuff that reminds him of her, tucked into his bathroom bag underneath his toothbrush. It stuffed completely full, practically bursting at the seams. There is the business card that Cobie gave them in the meeting they were at right before he bumped into Scarlett in the hotel lobby, the empty package of peanut M&Ms that he shared with her on the plane to Johannesburg, the cap to the tube of toothpaste, now long gone, that she borrowed from him that first night in South Africa. He has a Polaroid picture of the two of them from the safari in Botswana, a coin he found on the ground while they were waiting underneath the Eiffel Tower, the ticket for the train ride they took to the South of France. There is a napkin from the cruiseliner, the tiny Tunisian flag, the lighter telling them to go to the coliseum in El Djem. On top is a matchbook from the hotel in Gabes, a Pagani postcard, their admission ticket to the Taj Mahal, and a tiny candle that he snatched from the cave in Thailand.

He has kept every single thing that reminds him of Scarlett, things that take him back to the memory of meeting her or kissing her for the first time or that night in Tunisia and all of the nights that came after. When he starts to feel like he is fading or he can’t do this, when he thinks that he is just too tired to take one more step, he thinks of all of this, everything that they have already built together, and he pushes forward.

“This leg is going to be more brutal than the last ones, I think,” Jeremy says to the cameras as they are waiting to get off the plane in Beijing. “After this next elimination, we are down to the final three, and it will be those three teams racing to the finish.” Scarlett is sleeping next to him, her head on Chris’s shoulder, and he glances over at her. “You really don’t want to be the team that goes out right now.”

He knows that they aren’t going out, and the girls do too. It became very cleary right away that they are the only two teams on the flight from Bangkok to Beijing. They know that their flight was the first one out and that the next one was about four hours behind. Jeremy has no idea what happened to Anthony and Sebastian, but they have a substantial lead on them now.

It takes a lot of the pressure off. They don’t have to worry about splitting up or trying to get ahead of each other. At least not for now.

Top Pavilion is at the very top of a high hill smack dab in the middle of the city. They find taxis right away and make it to Jingshan Park with no issues. There are more stairs (always more stairs, much to Chris’s chagrin), and they take their time as they climb them. It is almost like they are a normal couple on a normal vacation with their two best friends, Jeremy thinks as he holds Scarlett’s hand. He doesn’t want the feeling to end.

Their next clue is a Detour, instructing them to choose between volley (scoring five points playing ping-pong against a local champion) or rally (riding a bus, a motorcycle taxi, and a Chinese bicycle taxi). They immediately start bickering.

“Is it both of us or just one of us?” Lizzie asks, reading the piece of paper with the instructions for the ping-pong.

“I don’t think it matters,” Scarlett says, looking over her shoulder. “Either one of us can do it. But we both suck at ping-pong.”

“Speak for yourself! Remember when I dated that guy freshman year of college who forced us to sit in the student lounge every single night while him and his buddies played?”

“Yeah, him and his buddies. You didn’t play.”

“I had to have learned something. It’s like osmosis.” She turns to Chris. “What about you?”

Chris shrugs. “We play all at the time at the station. It’s like the only thing to do once you get sick of Xbox, or at least it is ever since Renner broke the pool table.”

“I did not break it!”

“You kicked it, and now it wobbles.”

Scarlett snakes her arm around his waist, looking up at him. “A little competitive, are we?”

“Evans was cheating,” he grumbles, grabbing the piece of paper for rally out of Chris’s hand. The pros and cons of each choice are easy to see: it will be easy to find the community center where the ping-pong challenge is located, but ping-pong is the national sport of China and five points is a lot. If they do the transportation relay, it is very likely that they will get stuck in traffic, and any lead that they might get from being told exactly where the bus and the taxis are located could be blown like that.

“We gotta do ping-pong,” Chris says. He looks up at the girls. “You think you can do it?”

“I can’t wander around another goddamn city looking for a taxi,” Scarlett says. “If we can’t, we’ll go do the other thing, but I think either way this is going to be faster. And it’s not like we are pressed for time right now.”

Jeremy knows she is right, and as they head back down the steps towards their taxis, he is glad that they aren’t doing something that is going to wear them out. He thought he was in shape before this race started, but now he’s not so sure. He is sore all the time, and he’s not even the one with a busted hand.

“Oh, shit,” he says, turning to Chris as they get into their taxi. “Your hand.”

“It’s fine,” Chris says. “It’s my left hand. I can still do it.”

“You sure you don’t want me to?”

“I don’t want to get arrested for property damage when you inevitably get annoyed and break the table.”

“For the last time, you were cheating!”

The community center looks nothing like the YMCA that Jeremy and Chris swim at back home. It is a giant red building with a turreted roof in the middle of a square, surrounded by tall trees. Someone is painting on the stones of the ground, big strokes of calligraphy with a giant brush, and people are milling around, all eyes on the cameras when they get out of their cabs.

Someone leads them through the building and to a courtyard, where brightly colored flags and garlands of lights are strung up overhead. There are two big ping-pong tables right in the middle of the room, and they drop their backpacks against a wall. “Okay,” Chris says, taking a paddle from the man that brought them here. “Bring ‘em out.”

Two little kids who can’t be more than thirteen come out of a side room, and Chris raises his eyebrows. Jeremy snorts. “He’s gonna kick your ass,” he mutters to him, and Chris shoos him away.

It goes faster than Jeremy expects. The kids must be nervous because Chris gets three points on the board right off the bat. The last two come a little slower, and the kid racks up about ten before Chris gets a fourth. He isn’t paying much attention to Lizzie’s table (or Chris’s either if he’s being honest; Scarlett is plopped down on the ground next to him, her legs warm where they drape over his and her hand traveling up the back of his shirt where it is hidden from view), but somehow Lizzie manages to get five points first, practically throwing her paddle in the air as she screams.

Chris finishes a couple of minutes later, and Jeremy thinks that it is the easiest Detour they have had so far. He is sure that that isn’t going to be the trend for the last couple.

The clue that they get from one of the kids instructs them to pick up some items at the Hongqiao Market, and Jeremy knows immediately that they are going to have to eat some shit. He tries not to think about it as they leave the community center and head back out to the road.

“Not bad for an old guy,” Chris says as they stand on the curb, waiting to hail a taxi.

Lizzie snorts. “You’re thirty.”

“That’s old compared to you.”

They pull up to a giant building, stone steps packed with people outside, and next to the steps is a lion statute with a gold chain around its neck, clues hanging off of the chain. They pull up outside, Jeremy already feeling a little sick to his stomach from weaving through the Beijing traffic. Scarlett and Lizzie are already standing next to the lion, hunched over a clue.

“What is it?” Chris asks nervously, seeing the look on Lizzie’s face.

“We’ve gotta buy some shit. Five of those, one of those, and two of those.” Lizzie waits for Jeremy to pull a clue off the chain and rip it open. He is faced with a little bit of English and a whole lot of Chinese. The English tells them to buy the following things, followed by a list written entirely in Chinese. Then it instructs them to take a taxi, bus, or pedicab to cart number fifty-seven at the Donghuamen Night Market, followed by an address also written in Chinese. Jeremy’s head hurts like a motherfucker and they haven’t even gotten started.

“Alright,” Scarlett says, hiking up her backpack and leading the way. Jeremy pushes after her, keeping one hand curled around her arm as they enter the market, which is so packed with people they can barely move. “I’m having India flashbacks,” she says to Lizzie.

“Don’t.” Lizzie narrows her eyes at Chris, who just shrugs. He is clearly trying to keep a smirk off his face. “Don’t bring up India. For so many reasons.”

They have no strategy. Jeremy’s stomach turns over as they pass a few stalls; he sees octopus tentacles and full fish heads and eels still squirming around in basins of water. He keeps his eyes trained on Scarlett’s back as they move through the crowded aisles between the stalls because he knows that if he thinks about it too long, he is going to throw up.

Scarlett grabs the first couple people she sees, asking them if they speak English. None of them do, but when she shows the third person the list, he nods, gesturing for them to follow him. He leads them to a stall, speaking in rapid Chinese to the person behind it and indicating that they need five of whatever the first thing on the list is. Scarlett grabs Jeremy’s clue out of his hand, holding it out to the man and tapping it, holding up ten fingers.

Jeremy has to turn around when the person working at the stall puts ten, still moving, fat little beetles into a bag. They are nowhere near dead, and he is going to throw up in this marketplace. He sure hopes this is a Roadblock coming up; back in Seattle, Chris promised him that he would eat anything weird. Jeremy can barely even keep down a cooked carrot without a gag reflex.

The man leads them through the marketplace, ducking around corners and pushing between stalls. They cut a wide path with their camera crews and their backpacks, people darting out of their way, and they are making good time. They stop at another stall, where someone packages up two giant squid for them, and Scarlett hands them to Chris, who waves one of the packages under Jeremy’s nose just to fuck with him. At the third stall, they fork over some more money for two chicken feet apiece.

“I can’t do it,” Jeremy says to Chris as they weave their way out of the market. “You know I can’t do it.”

“I got you, brother. Don’t worry about it.”

They practically run out into the middle of the street to get a couple of taxis. The one good thing about the crazy traffic is that there is always a taxi within about thirty seconds of them, and before long they are back on the road, heading to a different market with their bags of food. Chris tries to keep it as far away from Jeremy as he can, putting it down on the ground next to his leg up against the car door.

“They were laughing at the beetle thing because apparently everyone buys them in bulk. Like by the hundred,” he says. Jeremy shakes his head quickly, putting a fist over his mouth to keep from dry heaving. “Listen.” Chris rolls his eyes, like it is at all new information that Jeremy can’t stomach anything even the slightest bit strange. “If you do have to eat it, just don’t think about it. Down it like a shot.”

“I haven’t done a shot since we were twenty-four years old,” Jeremy says hotly, looking out the window at the city as they race past it. “That’s easy for you to say.”

“Well.” Chris just shrugs. “Is it worth a million dollars to you?”

* * *

“You can never complain about the Smartcar again, LO. Got it?”

Once they get to the second market, a Roadblock clue is waiting for them, asking them who is hungry. Scarlett knows it’s her turn, just like she knows that she will be able to get this done a whole lot faster than Lizzie. Now she is regretting it.

Chris is sitting next to her, already looking green. Jeremy and Lizzie are sitting across from them, Jeremy with his head pillowed on his arms, unable to look up. They wait for someone to cook their food for them, coming over to put it down on the table, and Jeremy practically throws up when he smells it, Chris snapping at him not to look if he is going to be a baby about it. They have to eat all of it to move on, every last bite.

“Got it,” Lizzie says. She has her chin propped in her hands, and she is clearly holding back a smile. “Never again.”

Scarlett stares down at her plate. “Okay.” She takes a deep breath. “Just gotta do it.”

“Hold your breath,” Lizzie says unhelpfully.

The chicken legs go down fast; they are cut up into pieces and breaded in something, and the only difficult part about them is the texture. Scarlett washes every bite down with some sort of fruit juice in a can, but after the fifth or sixth bite, her stomach flips over and she winces. “Keep it down,” Lizzie says, her voice low. “Don’t think about it. Keep it down.”

She doesn’t look over at Chris, is intentionally keeping him just out of her peripheral vision, but he makes a tiny choking noise and she practically loses it. “Evans!” Lizzie snaps. “Shut up!”

“Sorry.” It sounds like his mouth is full, and his voice is weak. “I’m doing my best over here.

“Well, do better!”

Scarlett shoves the last of the chicken leg in her mouth, pulling the bone out. “Is it like Chinese food?” Lizzie asks, picking up the bone.

“No, it’s like feet.” She shakes her head, squeezing her eyes shut. “This is nothing like what we eat in the Village.”

She gets the squid down next, and it is even worse than the chicken feet. It is cut up into strips, and even though it has been cooked it is still a little stringy and slimy. She has to take a quick break in the middle of it, looking over at Chris to see where he is. His face is pale, he has a chicken foot in both hands, and he is muttering heatedly at Jeremy about all the things Jeremy is going to have to do to make this up to him. Scarlett catches Jeremy’s eye, but for once he doesn’t have anything encouraging to say to her. It looks like he is scared to even open his mouth.

She tries to swallow one of the beetles whole but it is too big, and she ends up ripping them all in half and throwing them back like shots. With every bite, she thinks about the fact that if she wins a million dollars, she can move to Seattle and start a new life. She won’t have to worry about what she wants to do anymore or what is coming next; she’ll have the time and money and cushion to figure it out. And more importantly, she won’t be alone.

“You would have thrown up, LO,” she says, as she is chewing the last beetle. “Seriously.”

Lizzie grins hugely, winking at her. “God, I love you,” she says, grabbing Scarlett’s empty plate as soon as the last beetle is down. “Excuse me!” she says to the waitress walking by, who takes the plate and comes back with a clue.

Chris finishes just a few moments later, throwing his hands up and sticking his tongue out at Jeremy, who punches him hard in the arm.

They check in at the South Gate of the Temple of Heaven at Tiantan Park, just a fifteen minute taxi ride away from the market that they are at. “Do I have shit on my face?” Chris asks as they walk out of the market.

“Just that dumb beard,” Jeremy says, looking a little bit better now that they are back out in the fresh air.

They beat the boys to the mat by a few seconds, their taxi driver getting them just a little bit closer, and Phil tells them that they are team number one, the Chinese man on the mat with them handing them each a cup of tea. Scarlett’s stomach is still rolling, but she manages to drink it, feeling a little bit better after she does. Chris and Jeremy fly up behind them, out of breath from sprinting across the park. It doesn’t sink in until Phil says it to the boys: they are in the final three. They have a one in three chance of winning a million dollars. And they are there with their boyfriends. What could be better than that?

“Fuck,” Chris says, still breathing hard as they walk across the square towards their hotel. “When did you two get so fast?”

“It’s all those peanut M&Ms,” Scarlett says. It has become their airport ritual to eat as many peanut M&Ms as they can stomach on the plane, something that she is certainly regretting now that they have been joined by squid and chicken feet and beetles.

Deep down, she knows that if it comes down to a foot race between the two of them and the boys during the final leg, they are not going to win. They have all been losing muscle mass and strength and energy, but when it comes down to it, Chris and Jeremy are still firefighters at the end of the day, and they have more in the tank than the girls do. It is something that she has been trying not to think about, but now that they know for sure that they are both in the final three, she thinks that they may be screwed.

A few hours later, she is in bed next to Jeremy, trailing her lips down his stomach as he curls his fingers into her hair, pulling gently. She doesn’t realize he wants to talk, keeps going down on him until he pulls a little harder. “Scar,” he says, his eyes dark and a little glassy.

She pushes herself up onto her elbows. “Yeah.”

“When it comes down to it…” He takes a deep breath, the muscles in his stomach flexing beneath her, hard as rocks. “Don’t hold back. Okay?”

She nods. “Then you can’t either. Whoever wins it, wins it.” They still don’t know who the third team in the final three is, waiting for Sebastian and Anthony or Tom and Brie to hit the mat first. She doesn’t know if it even matters at this point; they have such a lead that it really may just come down to them or the boys.

“Deal.” He nods once, running his thumb over her bottom lip. “You can, uh… keep going now.”

Scarlett smirks up at him, just catching the look on his face before her hair falls over one eye, but his words stay there in the back of her mind: don’t hold back.

That’s the last thing they can afford to do right now.


	14. in the mountain when your heart is pounding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and if you grow tired of looking, casting without hooking  
> oh just know your time will come  
> and i'll meet you in the mountain when your heart is pounding  
> like we planned when we were young  
> / costa rica by the national parks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cannot believe this is almost over. as always, thank you so much. it's been a long time since i've written something that so many people have read, and i'm truly blown away.
> 
> emily: thank you for being my scarlett, my anthony, my cevans. i love you so flipping much.

At some point, Scarlett and Lizzie are going to have to make a break for it.

She knows it. Lizzie knows it. Jeremy and Chris know it. And when they wake up at a hotel in China at the eleventh pit stop of the race, Bradley tells them that Anthony and Sebastian are the third and final team in the race, and they are even more sure. If there is any chance in hell of them beating the four boys, they have to get out ahead at some point.

She just isn’t sure yet of how that is going to happen.

They are almost a full day ahead of Anthony and Sebastian, but Scarlett knows that could change in an instant the second they get to an airport. They have to be going back to the United States soon, and if they don’t catch a flight at the perfect time, then they will lose any lead that they currently have.

The two of them have managed to get through the entire race without fighting. Sure, there was the bickering about the toothpaste and the shoes and the racecar, but she has seen other teams outright screaming at each other. Every day, she has become even more and more grateful to have Lizzie by her side, and as they are standing at the pit stop in the darkness of the city, waiting to leave, she grabs Lizzie’s hand, holding it tightly.

“You ready for this, LO?” she asks, her voice soft to keep the boys from hearing her. They are huddled about ten feet away, talking in low voices themselves.

Lizzie takes a deep breath. She is uncharacteristically quiet this morning. “As I’ll ever be.”

They are released at eleven fourteen at night, the boys at eleven fifteen, and there is energy crackling through the air as they are handed their clues. It is surreal that they are standing here in the final three. It is surreal that Scarlett has fallen in love. It is surreal that they have been to Zambia and France and Tunisia and Italy and India and Thailand and China, all these places that she never thought she would have a chance to see. It is surreal that there is a million dollars within arm’s reach. It is surreal that soon she will be going home.

It all hits her all of a sudden as the boys walk up to them and Lizzie reads the clue out loud. “Proceed to Tiantan Park, and find the X on the above map. Three kites have the same clue. Hours of operation…”

“Oh, no.” Scarlett bites back a swear word.

“Six a.m. to eight p.m.” Lizzie rolls her eyes, the light from the camera bouncing off her face. Scarlett fights the urge to rub her eyes, well aware that she has swiped some of Lizzie’s mascara and doesn’t want it smeared all down her face for the next twelve hours. “Well, fuck.”

“What time did Smackie get in?”

Lizzie rubs the back of her neck, shrugging and looking at Bradley. “Around eight,” he says.

“Great.” Lizzie sighs. “So they’ll leave at eight in the morning and our lead will be down to about two hours. That’s great.”

The boys aren’t saying much; Jeremy looks like he is actually falling asleep standing up. Chris cracks his neck, looking determined. “It’s fine, Liz,” he says, his voice scratchy. “Two hours is enough.”

They walk down the empty streets. There are buses parked on the side of the road, lining the street, all of them quiet and dark. There are no cars in sight, and it is the first time in this city that Scarlett hasn’t been surrounded by people. Eventually they find what may be the only two taxis out for service at this time of night, and they go to a hotel on the outskirts of the park so that they can be there right at six o’clock when it opens.

They split a room and fall into bed, still not talking much. Scarlett lies there awake for a while, looking at the ceiling and listening to Chris’s soft breathing and Lizzie’s snoring (she says she doesn’t, but Scarlett has lived with her four years and there is no denying it). They slept all damn day; she doesn’t know how the two of them managed to fall asleep like a lightswitch turning off. She thinks Jeremy is sleeping too until he rolls over and scares the bejesus out of her when he touches her arm.

“Hey,” he says, sending her practically flying off the bed. “You wanna go for a walk or something?”

They end up on the roof of the hotel; how Jeremy finds these places, Scarlett will never know, but he leads her right to it, pushing through doors that look locked and leading her up the stairs. He still isn’t saying much, but she doesn’t get a chance to ask him if he is okay before he stops her, standing in front of her and putting his hands on her waist.

“Do you remember that night in France?” he asks, like she could ever forget. “You kissed me and it felt like we were on top of the world.”

Scarlett takes a deep breath, putting her hands flat on his chest. “Of course.”

“Don’t forget that, okay?”

“Jeremy,” she says, tipping her head to the side and trying to make out his face in the light from the moon. “What’s wrong?”

He is quiet for a few moments, and she fights the urge to panic. “I promised you I would never leave you again,” he says finally. “What happened in Italy and India… I regretted it the second we went in the opposite direction. I don’t want you to think for a single moment that I don’t regret it.”

She shakes her head as soon as she realizes what he is saying. “I know you did,” she says. “I know you do. You’ve made up for it a thousand times. And if you need to go, then you go.”

“You really meant what you said? We will be something long after this is over?”

Scarlett slides her hands up and around the back of his neck, holding on tightly. “Yes.”

“Good. Because I meant it when I said that I would give this all up for you. We’ve been around the world and back, and you are still the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

His words send shivers down her spine, and she closes her eyes when he finally kisses her with the city surrounding them and that top of the world feeling covering them in light as the sun rises.

* * *

“You know I can’t read a map,” Chris is whining as they head into the park just before six the next morning. He is squinting at the map printed on the clue as if that will suddenly force it to make some sort of sense.

“Oh, we know.” Jeremy rolls his eyes at Scarlett, who bites back a laugh. “We all remember the racecar debacle.” He is holding Scarlett’s hand and it feels so normal that for a moment all he can think about is what their lives are going to look like when this is all over. “Give me that.” He snatches the clue out of Chris’s hand, turning it in a circle until he figures out where they are. “Okay.” He points off to their right. “We have to go that way.”

The park has four entrances, something they figured out the night before when Jeremy managed to find a guidebook at the front desk. They get there early, around five o’clock in the morning, and it is still dark as they walk around the walls of the park to find the best entrance. The guard standing there lets them in a few minutes early, and the sun is just starting to rise as they make their way towards the X on the map.

Even at six in the morning, the park is packed, people filing in from all directions as the gates open. It is a maze of trees and water features and paths, landscaping and buildings and people everywhere. It reminds Jeremy of the Taj Mahal as they make their way through it, and his life back in Seattle seems so far away. They cross a bridge over a creek and pass through a giant red building with turrets, the building opening up into a giant courtyard, so large that they can barely see the other side. It is easy to see that that is where the kite flyers are.

Overhead are dozens of kites, colorful and bright. They are shaped like birds and lanterns and dragons, and Jeremy squints against the quickly-rising sun, trying to see if there is a clue dangling from any of them. “We have to find two different ones,” Lizzie says, shading her eyes with her hand.

“What are we supposed to do, catch the kite guy and tackle him?” Chris asks as they take off across the courtyard.

“Any amount of money if you don’t do that.”

They make a ridiculous picture, sprinting across the courtyard towards one of the men flying the kites once they see the clue. Jeremy gets there first, saying hello to the man breathlessly and waiting for him to bring the kite, shaped like a butterfly, down towards the ground so he can grab the clue from it. Lizzie and Scarlett get their clue off a dragon, and they take a second to breathe and read the clue.

“Make your way to the Great Wall of China - yes!” Chris says. “I’ve been waiting for this. You must travel by public bus, not tourist bus, to downtown Beijing. Find the lower level entrance at Juyong Pass.”

The Great Wall of China is like nothing Jeremy has ever seen before. They round the side of a mountain, and it seems like it just appears out of the ground, stretching as far as he can see in either direction high above them. Scarlett is pressed up against the window of the bus, staring at it, her jaw dropped slightly, and Jeremy curls his arm around her waist as he looks over her shoulder.

“Wow,” she says as the bus drops them off on the side of the road. “This is unbelievable.”

“I think we’re in the wrong place,” Lizzie says, looking at her clue. “We have to find the lower level.”

They start walking along the side of the road. Jeremy checks his watch: it is ten to eight. Anthony and Sebastian are leaving the pit stop right now, and as much as he likes them, this really sucks. They had such a lead, and he thinks that the last leg would be much less stressful if it was just them and the girls. They have to be leaving China soon, and all he can do is cross his fingers that they manage to get on a flight without the frat brothers.

They end up hopping a fence, something Jeremy is sure production would frown upon but “production isn’t here, are they?” Lizzie says when he pouts. He helps Hayley and Kat over, taking the camera for a moment as Kat jumps down.

“Don’t tell on us, alright?”

There are colorful flags dotting the wall, and all Jeremy can see is a whole lot of stairs. “Goddammit,” Chris says as they start to climb. “How many fucking stairs do you think we’ve climbed during this race?”

“A million,” Lizzie says, her breath coming out in huffs in the chilly morning air. “When we get done with this, I am moving out of the walk up and into a house with an elevator.” She turns to Chris. “You think you can make that happen?”

“Anything for you, baby.” He grabs her backpack off her back, stopping her for a second to hoist it up into his arms so he can carry it the rest of the way.

Finally they make it to the lower level, which seems pretty high to Jeremy, and there is a guard standing next to a clue box. “Let’s rock and roll,” Chris says, grabbing one of the clues and handing it to Scarlett before taking one for himself.

“In this Detour, you must make your way to one of two pavilions located along the Great Wall,” Scarlett reads.

“Let me guess,” Jeremy says. “Either you gotta climb some fucking stairs, or you have to go six hundred miles out of your way.”

Scarlett snorts. “Pretty much.”

They choose the stairs, not wanting to waste any time. Anthony and Sebastian are only about an hour behind them, and that hour may be a make or break scenario at an airport. They decide to drop their backpacks at the bottom of the stairs once they realize it is a straight shot to the top, and they all sprint up them. Jeremy and Chris take them two or three at a time, Dave barely able to stay in front of them. Scarlett and Lizzie keep up as best they can, Kat and Hayley trailing behind.

“Oh my God,” Chris huffs out about halfway up. “I should have stretched.”

“You’re a firefighter!” Lizzie screams from behind him. “Do you ever have time for that?”

Eventually it gets so steep that they have to slow to a walk and then almost a crawl, the stairs stacked at such an angle that they are practically rock climbing. “I need some food,” Jeremy hears Scarlett say from behind him. “I would give my left arm for a Big Mac right now.”

After about fifteen straight minutes of climbing, they reach the flag fluttering high above the mountains, stopping for a moment to take in the view. Jeremy looks at the people milling around below them, tiny as ants, as Chris rips it open.

“Hit us, Evans,” Lizzie says. “What country now?”

Chris lets out a whoop, scaring Kat so badly that she practically drops her camera. “You are expected at North Country Bed and Breakfast in - get ready - Scotty Lake, Alaska.”

“No!” Scarlett grabs the piece of paper from him, looking at it for herself. She hugs Jeremy so hard she knocks him back against the side of the wall. “Stateside!”

They are going home.

* * *

“We have got to get on a flight that they can’t,” Scarlett says as they sprint down the stairs of the Great Wall and towards the line of waiting taxis. “That’s the only way we can get out ahead.”

“Then move it, Johansson!” Chris yells even though he is behind her. She wants to yell something back but she is concentrating too hard on trying not to fall down the damn stairs.

She genuinely cannot believe that they are going home. Obviously they all knew it was going to happen at some point; they have been racing for almost a month now. But suddenly it is right here in front of them, and even though Alaska is about as far as you can get from New York City in the United States, it still feels like home.

It’s almost over.

The first thing she is going to do when she gets back is take a really long, really hot bath at her mom’s house. Then she is going to sleep for forty-eight hours and when she wakes up she is going to eat an entire bucket of fried chicken. When she thinks about this little fantasy in her head on the way to the airport, she is imagining Jeremy next to her. She is going to have to do a lot of explaining to her mom, and she’s going to have to do it fast.

“It’s just starting to kick in that I really want to win this thing,” Scarlett says as they pull out onto the main drag, the mountains surrounding them on every side. “You know?”

“Oh, yeah.” Lizzie is digging around in her backpack for a scrunchie, but she sits up when Scarlett says that. “It’s just started kicking in for me too.”

“I just…” Scarlett shakes her head and looks out the window at the scenery flying past them. She turns around, sees the guys in the cab behind theirs and wonders what they are talking about, if they’re having the same conversation. “To stand on that mat and be number one would be… huge.”

“Huge.”

“I mean we’ve already done more than we ever expected, but…” Words fail her.

“I know, Scar. Me too.”

They started this thing for an adventure, for fun, because they had no idea what they were going to do after graduation. Scarlett feels like they have grown up a lot. They’ve seen new places, they’ve beat the pants off the other teams, and Scarlett has fallen in love (she thinks Lizzie has too, even if she won’t say it). They are going home two entirely different people; the only thing left to find out is whether they are going to be two different people with a million dollars in the bank.

They get to the airport in Beijing at nine thirty, the guys pulling in right behind them and jumping out of the cab to help them get their bags out. By this time, they practically have nothing in them, having dumped almost everything they own in pit stops along the way. All Scarlett really has left is her Columbia sweatshirt, her journal, her winter jacket, some hats and gloves, and a whole mess of stuff that reminds her of Jeremy and the race that she is never in a hundred years going to get rid of.

They head to the ticket counter. Scarlett takes the lead this time, Jeremy and Chris looking over their shoulders every five seconds. “They’re not here yet,” Lizzie says, rolling her eyes. “They are probably on their way to the Great Wall. Calm down.”

“Hi,” Scarlett says, tuning them out and bellying up to the international ticket counter. “We need eight seats to Anchorage, Alaska.”

“Okay.” The woman behind the desk looks up at her. Her accent is thick, and Scarlett has to strain to hear her. “You should transfer.”

“Okay. Uh… transfer on which… which airline?” The woman types something on her computer, her eyes moving across the screen. “We are trying to get there as soon as possible. If we have to take three different airlines, that’s fine.”

“Today?”

“Yes. Yes, today.”

After about fifteen minutes of work, the woman finds a flight to San Francisco, leaving at one forty-five, that would take them from San Francisco to Seattle to Anchorage. Scarlett knows the boys and Lizzie aren’t going to be happy with that; Anthony and Sebastian will be here within an hour. Before she can even turn around to tell them, the woman starts talking again. “Just so you know, we only have business seats on this flight, not economy.”

Scarlett stops in her tracks. “Oh, no. Shit. We have to fly economy. We cannot fly business.”

“I’m sorry. We only have business seats available.”

She wants to drop her head into her heads and give up. She is so tired of this airport bullshit that she could scream. But instead she thinks for a moment, steels herself, and says, “is there chance you can bump people up to business and put us in economy? Please, please, please. It is super important that we get on this flight.”

Scarlett crosses her fingers as the woman comes back. “It’s like playing the lottery,” she mumbles to her camera, handing over their stack of passports. The woman tells them that she can seat them in business class for the price of an economy ticket, and after Hayley calls Bradley to make sure that is okay, she books the seats.

“Come on,” she says to Lizzie and the boys once the tickets are in her hand. “Let’s get out of here before Smackie come in and see what we’re doing.”

They don’t slow down until they make it through customs and to their gate, finally coming to a stop and dropping their backpacks on the ground. “It was the best I could do,” Scarlett says for the hundredth time. She is positive that there is no other flight in this entire airport that is going to get them to Alaska that quickly, but she knows that Sebastian and Anthony are right on their tails. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Chris says, sitting down and grabbing the M&Ms out of Lizzie’s hand, ignoring her squeal of protest. “You’re a rockstar.”

“He’s right,” Jeremy says, pulling her down next to him and hooking his arm around her, holding her close against his side. “You killed it. We’ll just fight as hard as we have to once we get off that plane.”

* * *

Their plane lands in Anchorage at nine thirty the next night. They didn’t get to San Francisco until around midnight, then Seattle around six in the morning, and they waited around a whole in the Seattle airport for their flight to Alaska. Anthony and Sebastian are right there with them, all three teams neck and neck. Even so, Jeremy is glad that it is Anthony and Sebastian. There aren’t any weird vibes looming over them as they wait, all of them so glad to be back in the United States. They eat lunch at a Chili’s in the airport, eating and drinking and laughing and forgetting for a couple of hours what is in front of them.

But the second those wheels touch the ground in Alaska, the race is back on. Jeremy talked the flight attendant into getting them seats closer to the front of the plane, something that gets them out of the airport a solid ten minutes ahead of the frat brothers. They follow the directions in the clue, finding the Jeeps on the roof of the parking garage and telling their drivers to take them to the bed and breakfast two hours away from Anchorage.

Alaska is incredible, even after everything that they have seen. They are surrounded by capped mountains in the distance, the sky a muted blue that looks almost unreal. “God, it’s nice to have a driver that understands us,” Chris says under his breath to Jeremy so that the camera doesn’t pick it up. Jeremy nods, getting into the back next to Dave.

They drive towards the mountains, getting closer and closer through the windshield, and the sun starts to set, dropping the world into darkness. “We’ve been really respectful and understanding of each other, I think,” Chris says to the camera as they drive. He yawns hugely, putting his arm over his mouth to hide it. “We rip on each other, but he’s my best friend and that’s not going to change, no matter what happens here.” He pauses. “I do want that million dollars though.”

Snow blankets the ground when they pull up to the North Country Bed and Breakfast in Scotty Lake. The only way they can see the ground is by the headlights of the Jeep and the light on the cameras. Scarlett and Lizzie pull up behind them, getting out and yawning. Scarlett is practically holding Lizzie upright; they both look like they just woke up. Jeremy really hopes that they can get a few hours of sleep at least, or they may all just fall over.

They pull a clue off the front of one of the tiny cabins dotting the clearing. It is too dark to see what is surrounding them. “Experience a Native American blanket toss. While in the air, look for the next clue,” Scarlett reads. “First come, first serve. Opens at ten a.m. Spend the night in one of these cabins.”

“Oh, thank God.” Jeremy doesn’t want to think about the fact that they will have to beat not only the frat brothers, but also Scarlett and Lizzie too. He wants to live in this little bubble for one more night before they have to forget everything that has happened over the last thirty days and just go for it.

When he has sex with Scarlett that night, it feels like something has changed between them, like she is more insistent. It feels like the end of something, but not in a bad way. It feels like something is giving way so that they can begin their lives together.

“I love you,” she says into his ear as she comes, pulling him along with her. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” And he knows that he will never get tired of hearing her say it. This is worth a million dollars right here.

* * *

It is so bright when they wake up the next morning that it practically hurts Scarlett’s eyes. She walks out of their cabin, looks around, and sees nothing but snow and trees and mountains. Jeremy talks all the time about wanting a house out in the woods somewhere, in the middle of nowhere where it is just him and land and sky, and all of a sudden she understands that urge completely. She would stay right here forever if she could.

But it is time to go.

They are bundled up in the jackets and snowpants and boots that were waiting for them in their cabins, a good thing since they have almost nothing left in their backpacks. They throw them into the Jeeps before they trudge over to a clearing, pushing their way through snow that comes up to Scarlett’s knees. Scarlett zips up her coat as far as it will go as they see a group of villagers with an animal skin blanket waiting for them at the end of a path dotted with yelow flags.

She read about this last night, knows that Alaskan natives use this to toss members of their village high into the air so that they can see any surrounding animals in the area to hunt. Today one of them will be thrown up in the air to look for a clue somewhere nearby. It doesn’t take long for Scarlett to see it, Lizzie waiting on the ground for her. Jeremy jumps up next just to fulfill the requirements of the clue, hopping off after one toss to follow Scarlett and Lizzie across a snow-packed field towards the flag painted in yellow on the ground.

The next clue sends them to Matanuska Glacier a hundred miles away, where have to climb up an ice wall. At this point, Scarlett hopes that Lizzie is over her fear of heights, but they have to have a moment at the bottom of the wall, Scarlett talking her into it. “I promise, LO,” she says. “After this, never again. No more stairs, no more cliffs, no more rats. We’re gonna live large after this as long as we can finish.”

Anthony and Sebastian are right on their tails, getting strapped into their harnesses as Lizzie finally takes a deep breath and nods. Jeremy and Chris are already halfway up the wall, Chris looking over his shoulder. “C’mon, Liz!” he yells down. “It’s not that bad, I promise!”

Lizzie mutters under her breath the entire way up, and it is not easy going, but they do it. They both slip and fall a few times, Lizzie shrieking every time she loses grip on her ice pick, but the ropes are there to catch them. Sebastian and Anthony pass them on the way up, Scarlett telling Lizzie not to worry about it.

“Don’t look at them, Liz,” she pants. Jeremy and Chris are already back on the ground, watching them carefully as the park rangers help them get their harnesses off. She waves them off, not wanting to say anything for fear of breaking Lizzie’s concentration. Jeremy nods once, grabbing Chris and sprinting back down the trail towards the parking lot.

The clue that they get at the top tells them to drive to mile marker 131 on the highway where they must ride a snowmobile to a cabin. It says it is a pit stop, but they all know that no one is going to be eliminated; it is just a chance for them all to rest for a solid twelve hours per their contracts. The girls are sweating by the time they get back to the bottom, all four of the boys already gone from the parking lot.

They find the trailhead easily, the boys’ Jeeps already there. Scarlett parks the Jeep, and they grab their backpacks and climb on the last snowmobile. It is an easy ride through the forest, trees whipping past them and Lizzie holding on tightly to Scarlett.

They tumble off the snowmobile in front of one of the cabins. The boys are already there waiting for them, and Scarlett can’t wait to eat and sleep and take a shower, her bones aching from the cold and the climbing.

“Listen,” Lizzie says under her breath to Scarlett as they unlock the door to their cabin. “If it comes down to a foot race, you know we aren’t going to win. Look how easily they passed us today.”

Scarlett has been thinking the same thing, the thought sitting there in her brain the entire time she was climbing that fucking wall. “I know. But what are we going to do? Just have to try our best.”

“Our best may not be good enough, Scar.”

“It is,” Scarlett says firmly. “We’ve made it this far. It has to be.”


	15. you're a beautiful night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tall trees, wild dreams, what to be  
> and i know, i know, i can see  
> all that you are, all that you are  
> what a beautiful night  
> you're a beautiful night  
> / beautiful night by the national parks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello friends
> 
> in the hundreds of thousands of words that i have written over the last twenty-seven years, i can only think of one other time that i have been this emotional finishing something. i have written the same thing and the same people over and over for years, and this was the first time that i did something new, and honestly i completely fell in love.
> 
> emily: i don't even know what to say because there are no words. thank you infinity for pushing me out of my comfort zone, for encouraging me to do something new, for being there every step of the way, for making me laugh and cry and believe in myself. how lucky am i that i get to create next to you? i am truly unworthy. i love you three thousand.
> 
> and to everyone else: your love, comments, kudos, and messages mean so much to me. i am so excited to be here writing these two, and i am so excited for what emily and i are planning next. i'm not sure of a timeline yet, but it will be soon, so stick around for more angst and ridiculousness and love.
> 
> xo,  
> amanda

She wanted a life experience.

She sure as hell got one.

When Scarlett wakes up next to Jeremy, it feels like everything is different, like everything is about to change. And honestly she couldn’t be more ready. Her life is just beginning. Jeremy rolls over, sleepily slinging an arm over his waist and burying his face in her neck, his breath warm against her skin.

“Remember what we talked about last night,” he murmurs. She tangles her fingers in his hair, wanting to stretch the moment out a little bit longer. She does remember. They had a long talk, agreeing that when they wake up in the morning, the race is on. They are no longer a team of four, both of them knowing they will do whatever they have to in order to make it to that mat first.

“I know,” she says softly. “I remember.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The air is quiet around them, the sky black outside and the cabin lit by a tiny lamp, throwing soft light against the wall and making their shadows huge as they leave the warmth of their bed. They get dressed in silence, pulling on as many layers as they have left and topping them off with snowpants and parkas and gloves and hats. At four-fifteen in the morning, Jeremy kisses Scarlett goodbye, and she watches him trudge through the snow towards the starting point, disappearing into the darkness.

The girls don’t leave the cabin until a quarter to five. It is still dark outside and colder than anything that Scarlett has ever experienced before. By the time Lizzie rips open the clue, her hands are already freezing, even with her giant gloves and the handwarmers she talked off of Bradley the night before.

“Put on your snowshoes and follow the flags to the route marker in front of Takosha Lodge. The lodge opens at eight a.m.”

Scarlett checks her watch as Lizzie reads the clue out loud. “So we have four hours to kill. Although I guess we have no idea how long it’s going to take us to get there.” They sit down in the snow, strapping on their snowshoes and grabbing ski poles. They have new batteries in their flashlights, and they can see the tracks in front of them, four sets: Jeremy, Chris, Anthony, and Sebastian.

It is probably only about a half mile trek, and the trail is clear, the yellow flags standing prominently out of the snow on either side. It is nothing like trying to find those rocks in that desert, something that crossed Scarlett’s mind briefly as Lizzie read the clue. Even so, it is tough work, the snow soft and deep, and Scarlett is sweating through her thermal soon after they leave the pit stop.

It only takes them about a half an hour at most, even though they are going as slow as possible so they don’t twist an ankle. Kat nearly goes down at one point, Lizzie lunging forward to grab her arm and keep her upright. Scarlett hopes these women get paid a hell of a lot because she can’t imagine how they are doing all the same things Scarlett and Lizzie are doing with that giant camera and all of their equipment.

Eventually they come through a copse of trees to see the lodge standing there, all four of the boys camped out in front of it. “Hey!” Chris waves his arms in the air like he’s drowning.

“We can see you, Evans.” Lizzie drops her poles on the ground next to a parked snowmobile, covered in snow. “You’re not lost at sea.”

He sticks his tongue out at her just as someone comes out of the lodge and tells them that it’s too cold to sit outside for that long and they can come in and wait. They strip off all of their layers as soon as they get into the lodge, one of the men inside handing them very hot, very strong cups of coffee. Chris immediately makes himself a bed on the floor, pulling Lizzie down next to him. Anthony and Sebastian settle in at one of the tables, making immediate friends with the mushers. Jeremy sprawls out on the couch, moving over so that there is space for Scarlett to sit next to him.

She doesn’t know what to say, is too tired to form any words and too anxious to try, but they don’t need to say anything. She just sits there, tucked up against his side, until she finally dozes off.

At eight o’clock, they all file out of the lodge, Jeremy and Chris first, then the frat brothers, then Scarlett and Lizzie. Jeremy and Chris take their clue first, their crew circling around them as they read it quietly, not loud enough for even Anthony and Sebastian to hear, much less the girls who are standing about ten feet away. Before they turn to leave, Jeremy winks at her, filling her heart with warmth and making her forget that they are standing in snow that is coming up to their knees.

There are dogs barking in the background, and now that the sun has finally risen, Scarlett can see that they are in the middle of a mushers’ camp. She is crossing her fingers in her gloves that they are going to get to go on a dog sled.

Sure enough, they have to choose between dog power and horsepower for the Detour, and there is no question in their mind that they are going to choose dog power. “If you choose the dog sled, you will travel slowly, but you will only have to travel eleven miles,” Scarlett reads. “If you choose the snowmobile, you will travel much faster, but you will have to cover thirty miles.”

“Dog sled,” Lizzie says quickly. “I hated that fricking snowmobile yesterday, and when are we ever going to get this chance again?”

It started out as a life experience, and it’s going to end with one too.

They load their backpacks up onto two sleds, each hooked up to five barking, lunging, whining dogs. Scarlett wants to stop and pet all of them, but they don’t have the time. Sebastian and Anthony have split off to the right towards the snowmobiles, but Jeremy and Chris are getting instructions from one of the mushers on what to do.

As soon as Scarlett and Lizzie are each standing on the back of one of the sleds behind their packs, holding on tightly to the metal bar in front of them, a couple of guys come over to tell them how to control the dogs, what to say, how to stand, and where to step when they have to brake. Before long, they are racing down the path behind the boys, who are a solid hundred yards in front of them, if not further. The air is full of the sound of dogs barking and Chris yelling unintelligibly at the top of his lungs, the sound drifting back towards them.

The wind whips by Scarlett’s face as they fly through the forest and out onto a giant frozen lake, the snow spreading out around them and practically blinding them. It is terrifying and exhilarating and unbelievably cool all at the same time.

Once they get out onto the lake, Scarlett and Lizzie start flying. They pass Chris easily, Lizzie yelling out “that’s what you get for being a giant!” as they go around him. He is crouched down, trying to make himself as aerodynamic as possible, but this is the one scenario in which it helps that Scarlett and Lizzie are small. Jeremy is still out in front of them, and Scarlett knows they need to get ahead of him before they go into the forest on the other side of the lake and there is no more room to pass.

At the last possible second, they manage to slip past Jeremy, Hayley and Kat on a snowmobile next to them. “See ya!” Scarlett yells, and he turns just in time to see them fly by.

It takes a couple of hours to get to the end point, and by the time they pull in, more mushers waiting for them to take the dogs, Scarlett’s back is killing her. She figures they have at least fifteen minutes on Jeremy and Chris, if not more, and she doesn’t want to waste a single second of it. She throws their backpacks into one of the waiting Jeeps as Lizzie takes a clue from a musher, telling Scarlett that they need to go to Fish Lake to find their next clue.

The road is snowy and icy, and they are out in the middle of nowhere. Trees surround them on all sides, mountains looming on the horizon, snow as far as they can see, and Scarlett grips the wheel tightly as Lizzie tries to read the map. As they pull to the lake, they can see a lot of cars on the side of the road and ice houses dotting the snow.

There is a small pavilion with a yellow flag hanging off the front, and they slip and slide their way over to it. As soon as they make their way through it and out the other side, they see a hole cut in the ice, and Lizzie starts shaking her head.

“Uh-uh. No fucking way. No. Nope. I’m not.”

“I knew we would be doing this!” Scarlett says, dropping her backpack on the ground.

“You did just say it on the dog sled run,” Lizzie agrees. She rips open a clue, the paper inside bright red. “Roadblock.”

* * *

Jeremy is an idiot.

He is truly the dumbest person alive.

Technically, it is his turn to do the Roadblock, and Chris did eat all that stuff at the market in Beijing. But if he had known that he would have to strip down to his underwear and jump into a forty degree lake in the middle of Alaska, maybe he would have tried to choke down a beetle or two.

“Annual ritual, my ass,” he mumbles, already shivering as he kicks his pants off. Chris is laughing so hard off to the side that it is completely silent, tears rolling down his cheeks and freezing almost instantly as they hit the ground. “Why don’t you shut the fuck up?

He practically slips and falls into the snow as he navigates his way down the path towards the water, barely managing to catch himself at the last second before he hits the ground. Dave follows him, picking his way through the snow carefully. The hole is only about six feet wide, a yellow flag standing on the other side, mocking him. He hesitates at the edge of the water.

“Come on!” Chris shouts from the pavilion. “Man up! Just do it!”

“You think Scar did this or Lizzie?” he yells back, trying to prolong the moment. Even so, it is so cold that his skin is dotted in goosebumps, and he can’t even think about how he is going to feel when this is over. There was a clue still left in the box when they got here to Fish Lake, so Jeremy knows that Anthony and Sebastian are still behind them somewhere.

“Scar, for sure,” Chris calls. “And if she can do it, so can you.”

“Count me down.”

“Okay. Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-”

“From three, you jack-ass!”

“Three! Two! One!”

Here goes nothing, Jeremy thinks to himself as he jumps. The clue was very specific: you have to submerge yourself completely under water to complete the task, and he feels the water close in over his head. It is like nothing he has ever felt before, so painful that his muscles instantly contract and his lungs feel like they are on fire. He grabs the clue as quickly as he can, clamping it between his teeth as he swims back to the edge and hoists himself out.

He sprints back up the path as quickly as he can, his teeth chattering so much that he can’t speak. Chris is waiting there with a towel, still laughing to himself, and Jeremy swaps out the clue for the towel, drying off his hair and getting back into his clothes as quickly as he can, shivering all the way. “Dry off, get dressed, and take a plane to New York City,” Chris reads. “Oh, I bet the girls shit their pants. Hail a cab and head for the route marker at Vincent Daniels Square on Fifty-first and Roosevelt.” He stops reading, looks up at Jeremy as he pulls on his pants. “I will never again be able to take a cab without thinking of Maxwell.”

“If you don’t shut your fucking mouth about Maxwell,” Jeremy manages to say as he zips up his jacket. “Let’s go!”

“We’re going to their hometown,” Chris says as they make their way back to the parking lot. “They’re gonna have a huge advantage over us.”

Sebastian and Anthony are just pulling in as they load their backpacks back into the Jeep and take off. They couldn’t be more on each other’s heels; it is going to come down to one mistake or one shortcut, one small decision. There is no more room for error.

* * *

Lizzie is practically crying as Scarlett speeds down the highway, her hair tucked up into her hat to keep it from freezing solid. “We’re going home, baby,” she keeps saying, her face still streaked with the tears that started to fall as soon as she read the words New York City. Scarlett was still getting dressed, pulling her leggings on over frozen legs as quickly as she could, but she stopped when she heard Lizzie say New York, her hands hovering in midair.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not!”

They are going home.

Her lungs still burn every time she takes a breath, the cup of hot coffee someone gave her helping only a little, but it is all eased by the fact that they are only one plane ride away from the end. “Once we’re in New York, it’s all over,” she says.

“All over,” Lizzie agrees. “We’re taking it. It’s our turn.”

“You know the boys are going to try to follow us,” Scarlett says. “That’s what they did in the first leg.”

“We have to try to lose them.”

“I know.” Scarlett is already thinking about exactly where to go when they get out of the airport, the easiest place to get a cab and the fastest way to get to Queens.

They go to work the second they get to the airport, flying up to the ticket counter and saying that they need the fastest flight to New York that they can find. “JFK, Newark, LaGuardia, we don’t care,” Lizzie says breathlessly. “Whatever you’ve got, we want it.” They end up getting a flight that will route them through Seattle and into New York at six o’clock tomorrow morning. They are pretty confident that there is nothing that will get them there any sooner, but they cover all of their bases.

They strip of all of their winter clothes, leaving them in a pile in the bathroom, and they shove all of their stuff into Scarlett’s backpack, leaving Lizzie’s behind too. They separate out their travel binder with their clues and airline tickets and pictures, Scarlett tucking it into her sweatshirt pocket. They plan to check their one remaining backpack at the gate so that they can sprint out of the airport with nothing. They can come back to get it when this is all over.

Scarlett’s hands are shaking like she has low blood sugar, but she knows that’s not it, not with all of the peanut M&Ms that Lizzie is throwing at her as they sit at their gate. It is anticipation and anxiety and nerves, the thought that they are right here at the end heavy in her mind. For the first time, she doesn’t want to see Jeremy, and it is a weird feeling when her heart drops as they see him come strolling up with Chris.

“You made it,” she says, trying to muster up enough energy as possible. She has had many a conversation with Lizzie about their chances of winning, and they both agree that if it comes down to a sprint, which they are sure it will if only for entertainment purposes, they don’t have a chance. Their only opportunity to get ahead will come from their knowledge of the city, and there is no way to plan for that.

“It’s okay,” Jeremy says, sitting down next to her and reading her mind. “You don’t have to act excited.”

She laughs, dropping her head onto his shoulder and breathing him in. “You know I am. It’s just…”

He puts his hand on her knee, warm through her yoga pants. “I know, Scar. Me too.” He looks around. “Smackie is right behind us. Just so you know.”

“So this is really it.”

“This is it.”

Because Scarlett and Lizzie got their tickets first, they got first pick of their seats, and they manage to talk a couple of young guys into switching with them once they get onto the plane, putting them just a few rows back from the front. Jeremy and Chris are somewhere around the middle, and Anthony and Sebastian are dead last, as far back as they could be. Scarlett and Lizzie settle into their seats, holding hands tightly and not speaking, watching the ground fall away underneath them as they take off. A couple of hours later, they catch their connecting flight in Seattle, everything going as smoothly as it has the entire race. All four boys split away from them as they wait at the gate, coming back loaded down with maps and guide books that they don’t even try to hide from view.

When they get onto the second plane, they try to sleep, know that they will need to be as clear-headed as possible the second that plane touches down in New York. Lizzie manages to take a nap, her head balanced against the window, but Scarlett can’t calm down long enough to fall asleep, her mind too full and every nerve standing at attention.

She practically jumps out of her skin when someone taps her on the shoulder, whipping around to see Jeremy there, holding up a hand to keep her from saying anything. It is nighttime, the sky black all around them, and most people are asleep. The plane is full of the sounds of soft snores and even breathing; even the flight attendants are nowhere to be found, walking up and down the aisles every once in a while, but for the most part they are alone.

“What are you doing?” she whispers as he pulls her out of her seat and towards the front of the plane. The flight attendants are all in the back, no one there to see as he pushes her into the bathroom and locks the door behind them. “Jeremy, what-”

He kisses her, cutting her off before she can say anything else, and any worry that she might have had about the game or the strategy or someone catching them is instantly erased from her brain as he pushes her back against the door, sliding his hands down to her waist and working her mouth open gently. Her entire body is on fire as he picks her up, settling her down on the edge of the sink and hooking his fingers in the waistband of her pants, pulling them down.

“It’s just us, Scar,” he says, his voice rough as he tries to keep quiet. “Right now we are thirty thousand feet in the air and we have a little bit more time and it’s just the two of us.” She bites her lip hard, the edges of her vision going blurry as he moves against her.

“Just us,” she whispers back, holding on to him tightly before she has to let go.

* * *

The girls are gone before they even have a second to breathe.

He knew they would be. They all know it. They are right at the front of the plane, and this is their hometown. They have the advantage. They are going to be damn near impossible to beat, even if they don’t realize it.

“Why couldn’t this have ended in Seattle?” Chris huffs out as they sprint down the gangway of their plane. The girls are nowhere in sight, and Sebastian and Anthony are somewhere behind them. “We’ve been in the Seattle airport twice in the last two days, and yet here we are in New York again.”

“Life ain’t fair, brother.” They still have their backpacks, although Jeremy realized somewhere around the plane change in Seattle that Scarlett and Lizzie didn’t, and he is realizing that they should have just left them or checked them or dumped them somewhere.

“We’re gonna have to pull something out of our ass to win.”

Jeremy stops him, even though they don’t have time to stop, grabs him so that he turns to look Jeremy square in the eye. “We can do it,” he says firmly. “You know we can. Just believe in it.”

They follow all the signs to ground transportation, finding the cab that is already waiting there for them, thanks to Chris managing to talk some girl into letting him use her cell phone to call ahead. Jeremy looks around, but the girls are nowhere in sight, although he can see Sebastian and Anthony crash out onto the curb as they pull away.

* * *

“Can you take the GW Bridge? And then the Tri straight to Queens?” Scarlett asks breathlessly as their taxi driver takes the road out of the airport complex. “We’re in, like, as big of a hurry as you could imagine and we want to stay away from Manhattan.”

“You got it,” their driver says.

“We’ll give you all the money we have,” Lizzie adds in. She pulls off her sweatshirt, dropping it onto the floor of the car. It is the middle of June, and even though it is early in the morning, they can already tell that the city air is going to be hot and muggy around them. Scarlett is wearing her Columbia sweatshirt, didn’t want to leave it behind, but she is regretting it now. “Scar,” Lizzie says, knowing exactly what she’s thinking. “You gotta leave it. I’ll buy you a new one. I’ll buy you a hundred. I promise.”

Scarlett takes a deep breath, clutching onto the front of her sweatshirt. This was the only thing she brought with to remind her of home, and it almost physically pains her to take it off. But, she thinks, as she folds it up, setting it on the seat next to them, New York might not be home anymore. Her path might be different now. “Sir,” she says, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “Could you mail this back to me?”

* * *

Chris has all of the money that they have left clutched in his fist, and he is doing his best to bribe their taxi driver to go faster. Jeremy can tell that he is getting more and more frustrated with every mile they go, and he is trying to stay calm enough to keep them both together. “I don’t think Smackie have caught up to us,” Chris says, glancing behind him every six seconds.

Jeremy shrugs. He thinks that the girls are out in front, and all he is focused on is catching them. He knows that if they can stay on their tails, they can beat them to the finish if it ends in a sprint. As they get closer to Fifty-first, they squint through the early morning light to try to see a flag.

* * *

“This was nonstop,” Lizzie says as they fly out of the cab, yelling to their driver that they’ll be right back. “There is no way they beat us here.”

But when they open the clue box, there are about ten clues stuffed inside, a trick from production to keep them from knowing what place they are in, and Scarlett starts to doubt. “There is an elevated train station adjacent to this park,” Scarlett says, reading as fast as she can as Lizzie scans the park for the boys. “Use it to take the Seven train to the Willets Point/Shea Stadium stop. Follow the signs to Flushing Meadows and find the yellow flags that will lead you to the finish line.”

She practically drops the clue when Lizzie screams. “We are minutes away!” she shrieks, grabbing Scarlett and practically dragging her out of the park. They fly back to their taxi, throw a hundred bucks through the window, and take off up the stairs to the train station.

* * *

There is no one else on their train.

They made a big scene at the station, Chris falling up the last three or four stairs and hitting the ground hard. Jeremy doesn’t even look back, just sprints up the counter and yells at the poor girl behind it that he needs four tickets for the number Seven train to Willets Point. Thankfully, she is a New Yorker and doesn’t even seem phased that there are two screaming men standing in front of her with a camera crew. She points them in the direction of the train disinterestedly.

It is just pulling up when they get there, the lights appearing in the distance. As soon as they get on, they walk the train, looking for the girls and the frat brothers. The train is packed with people on their way to work, but they don’t see either team. They ask people on the train which side they should get off, situate themselves right in front of the doors, ready to make a run for it once the train stops.

“You think we beat them?” Chris asks. The palm of his hand is bloody from his fall in the train station, but he just wipes it off on the back of his shirt, ignoring it completely.

“I don’t know,” Jeremy says honestly, shaking his head. “We’re either ahead or behind. They’re not on this train.”

* * *

“Follow the yellow flags to the finish line,” Lizzie says. They are on the train, bouncing up and down excitedly. Scarlett is really glad that they left their backpacks behind, sure that it is going to be pure adrenaline carrying them across that finish line. “You ready to run?”

Scarlett takes a deep breath. Her entire body is shaking. “I’m ready.”

“Listen,” Lizzie says as the train starts to screech to a halt. “No matter what happens, I’m so glad I did this with you. We ran a good race.”

“I love you, LO.”

“I love you too.”

They glance around, checking once more that they are alone on their train. They don’t see the boys anywhere, figure they would be hard to miss with their camera crews, but it doesn’t matter at this point. They have done everything they can do.

As the train screeches to a halt, they take off, jumping down the stairs two or three at a time and rounding the corner to get out of the station. They slow down just long enough to push through the turnstiles to get outside, sprinting out into the morning air. Goosebumps pop up on Scarlett’s skin, and she doesn’t know if it’s the adrenaline or the breeze or just pure nerves.

She has a bad feeling, doesn’t know why, but she just knows that the boys are already at that finish line waiting for them. If they are, it’s going to be okay. If they lose, they are still winning. But she wants this. They are so close they can taste it. They can’t go down now, not like this.

They sprint up a wooden bridge, Lizzie screaming “flags!” at the top of her lungs as soon as they come into view. Scarlett’s legs are already burning, her lungs on fire, but there is no way in hell she is stopping now.

“Hold steady, LO,” she says, panting. “We’ve either won or we’ve lost.”

They sprint into the park, yellow and white flags everywhere they can see. “Straight ahead!” Lizzie says, pointing. They cross a courtyard, see a path lined with trees, a flag strung from every one. It is too long to see the end.

After another minute of running, the finish line comes into view, a giant red mat spread across the ground and everyone they raced with standing around it cheering. Phil is standing on the mat, but the sun is rising behind him and they can’t see.

“Are they there?” Lizzie asks, barely able to squeeze the words out. “Can you see them?”

“I can’t,” Scarlett says, shaking her head. She feels like she is about to fall over, her legs buckling, and she reaches over to grab Lizzie’s hand, lacing their fingers together. People’s faces start to fall into place: Zendaya and Jacob, Karen and Zoe, Paul and Evangeline, Hemsworth and Ruffalo, Chadwick and Letitia, Michael and Tessa, the lawyers, and Tom and Brie, all of them standing there waiting for them to cross. Their cheers fill the air, the sound of clapping and yelling and whistling floating towards them.

Finally they get close enough to be sure.

The boys aren’t there.

“Oh my God,” Lizzie says, practically stopping. Scarlett tugs on her hand, pulling her forward. “Oh my God, I think we did it.”

Scarlett doesn’t realize that tears are falling down her face until they are crossing the finish line, collapsing against each other. Lizzie hugs her for a long time, everyone surrounding them and patting them on the back. She barely even hears Phil talking.

“Nine countries, four continents, thirty-five thousand miles, and you two are the official winners of The Amazing Race,” he says, a whoop from Hemsworth practically drowning him out. Scarlett shakes her head, Tom’s arm around her waist the only thing keeping her upright.

Thankfully, she has Lizzie there to speak for her. “It was the most beautiful, grueling, fulfilling, exciting experience of my life,” Lizzie says, the words coming out in huffs. “And I did it all with my best friend.” Scarlett drops her head against Tom’s shoulder, still trying to catch her breath.

“We didn’t think we were going to make it sometimes,” she manages to get out. “But we stuck together and we didn’t fight and we each did our job and rode our strengths. And we had such kick ass competition…” She shakes her head again, at a complete loss for words. Now that they have finished, now that they can start to relax, all she wants to do is see Jeremy. And she is filled with such a range of emotions, elation that they have won and sadness that the boys and didn’t and weariness and homesickness and excitement at what is coming. She just wants to hug him.

* * *

“I hear cheering,” Chris says as they start down the long path lined with flags. “That’s gotta be a good sign, right?

“You see anything?”

“Not yet.”

For years to come, he will remember this moment like it happened in slow motion. He will remember rounding the bend in the path and hearing the cheering of all the contestants waiting for them. He will remember looking behind them to see if the girls or the frat brothers on close on their heels. He will remember thinking that they have done it.

He will remember Chris turning to him. “Brother. The girls are there.”

He will remember his heart stopping, ice water rushing through his veins at the thought of loss. He will remember thinking for a moment that this was all for nothing.

But he will also remember pushing through, sprinting to the end and keeping his eyes on Scarlett’s the whole way. He will remember crossing that finish line and pulling her into his arms, holding her tightly. He will remember that she is shaking, breathing hard, her heart pounding against his. He will remember Chris spinning Lizzie around. He will remember shaking Phil’s hand. He will remember Anthony and Sebastian coming in just a few minutes later, sees them having the same realization that Jeremy and Chris did but finishing strong anyways. He will remember whispering “you did it, you did it, you did it” over and over into Scarlett’s ear until it starts to sink in for her, for him, for all of them.

He will remember all of this for the rest of his life.

* * *

A few weeks later, the girls move to Seattle.

Lizzie takes over the apartment, adding curtains and rugs and buying actual groceries. “I can’t live in a place where there are twenty-five bottles of beer and one lime in the fridge,” she declares on her first day. “That’s lunacy.” She cooks for them. They go on runs along Alki. They see the Space Needle and Gasworks Park and the market. And not too long after the girls move, Lizzie writes Chris a twenty-five thousand dollar check to send to Maxwell.

The girls give Anthony and Sebastian a hundred thousand dollars, a spat ensuing when Anthony tells them that there is no way in hell they are going to take it, and Lizzie informs him that actually, they are, and this is the very least they deserve for being by their side the entire time.

And Scarlett buys a house.

It is Jeremy’s dream house, a huge cabin surrounded by woods and mountains and streams and nature, not too far outside Seattle. It needs a little bit of love, but when Scarlett hands Jeremy the keys, he practically proposes on the spot.

He flips it, filling it with light and happiness and love. There is an entire drawer full of toothpaste, and they buy a dog and name it Paris. 

Jeremy thinks that he has never seen Chris so happy, not in his entire thirty years of life. And he is certain that he has never been this happy, that he is falling even more in love every single day, something that he never would have thought possible before their entire lives changed in the blink of an eye. They are still firefighters, still spending every couple of days at the station, but now they have people to come home too. Now they have people to fight for.

And every night when he falls asleep next to Scarlett in their house, in the life that they have built for each other, with the stars twinkling through the skylight over head and the moon throwing light across the bed, with the sound of water and owls and wolves howling coming through the windows, with the trees waving black against the sky and his arm tight around her, he thinks that this is a beautiful night. 


End file.
